CASE vs. DECODE

Question

Referring to a previous question, i was wondering if its always possible to replace DECODE by CASE and which one is better for performance?

Answer 1

An old thread, I know but another interesting comparison between CASE and DECODE... pick your poison.

SELECT CASE 1 WHEN '1' THEN 'A' ELSE 2 END result 

FROM DUAL 

/*
ORA-00932: inconsistent datatypes: expected NUMBER got CHAR
00932. 00000 -  "inconsistent datatypes: expected %s got %s"
*/

;

SELECT DECODE(1, '1', 'A', 2) result

FROM DUAL

/*
A
*/

;