Using an Alias in a WHERE clause

I have a query which is meant to show me any rows in table A which have not been updated recently enough. (Each row should be updated within 2 months after "month_no".):

SELECT A.identifier
     , A.name
     , TO_NUMBER(DECODE( A.month_no
             , 1, 200803 
             , 2, 200804 
             , 3, 200805 
             , 4, 200806 
             , 5, 200807 
             , 6, 200808 
             , 7, 200809 
             , 8, 200810 
             , 9, 200811 
             , 10, 200812 
             , 11, 200701 
             , 12, 200702
             , NULL)) as MONTH_NO
     , TO_NUMBER(TO_CHAR(B.last_update_date, 'YYYYMM')) as UPD_DATE
  FROM table_a A
     , table_b B
 WHERE A.identifier = B.identifier
   AND MONTH_NO > UPD_DATE

The last line in the WHERE clause causes an "ORA-00904 Invalid Identifier" error. Needless to say, I don't want to repeat the entire DECODE function in my WHERE clause. Any thoughts? (Both fixes and workarounds accepted...)

This is not possible directly, because chronologically, WHERE happens before SELECT, which always is the last step in the execution chain.

You can do a sub-select and filter on it:

SELECT * FROM
(
  SELECT A.identifier
    , A.name
    , TO_NUMBER(DECODE( A.month_no
      , 1, 200803 
      , 2, 200804 
      , 3, 200805 
      , 4, 200806 
      , 5, 200807 
      , 6, 200808 
      , 7, 200809 
      , 8, 200810 
      , 9, 200811 
      , 10, 200812 
      , 11, 200701 
      , 12, 200702
      , NULL)) as MONTH_NO
    , TO_NUMBER(TO_CHAR(B.last_update_date, 'YYYYMM')) as UPD_DATE
  FROM table_a A
    , table_b B
  WHERE A.identifier = B.identifier
) AS inner_table
WHERE 
  MONTH_NO > UPD_DATE

Interesting bit of info moved up from the comments:

There should be no performance hit. Oracle does not need to materialize inner queries before applying outer conditions -- Oracle will consider transforming this query internally and push the predicate down into the inner query and will do so if it is cost effective. – Justin Cave

 SELECT A.identifier
 , A.name
 , TO_NUMBER(DECODE( A.month_no
         , 1, 200803 
         , 2, 200804 
         , 3, 200805 
         , 4, 200806 
         , 5, 200807 
         , 6, 200808 
         , 7, 200809 
         , 8, 200810 
         , 9, 200811 
         , 10, 200812 
         , 11, 200701 
         , 12, 200702
         , NULL)) as MONTH_NO
 , TO_NUMBER(TO_CHAR(B.last_update_date, 'YYYYMM')) as UPD_DATE
FROM table_a A, table_b B
WHERE .identifier = B.identifier
HAVING MONTH_NO > UPD_DATE

Or you can have your alias in a HAVING clause