Oracle Database Discussions

I'm running 10g XE on Windows Vista and I was just playing around looking at v$sysstat. The following pl/sql code works fine when run as system (not as sysdba)

declare
   function phys_reads RETURN NUMBER IS
      phys number;
   begin
      select value into phys from v$sysstat where name = 'physical reads';
      return phys;
   end;
begin
   dbms_output.put_line('phys = '||phys_reads);
end;

but if make phys_reads a stand alone procedure like this

create or replace
   function phys_reads RETURN NUMBER IS
      phys number;
   begin
      select value into phys from v$sysstat where name = 'physical reads';
      return phys;
   end;

I get Error(4,35): PL/SQL: ORA-00942: table or view does not exist

Can anyone explain why this is?

Edited by: ow007829 on Aug 10, 2010 11:49 PM