Check table exist or not before create it in Oracle

I know this topic is a bit old, but I think I did something that may be useful for someone, so I'm posting it.

I compiled suggestions from this thread's answers into a procedure:

CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE create_table_if_doesnt_exist(
  p_table_name VARCHAR2,
  create_table_query VARCHAR2
) AUTHID CURRENT_USER IS
  n NUMBER;
BEGIN
  SELECT COUNT(*) INTO n FROM user_tables WHERE table_name = UPPER(p_table_name);
  IF (n = 0) THEN
    EXECUTE IMMEDIATE create_table_query;
  END IF;
END;

You can then use it in a following way:

call create_table_if_doesnt_exist('my_table', 'CREATE TABLE my_table (
        id NUMBER(19) NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY,
        text VARCHAR2(4000),
        modified_time TIMESTAMP
  )'
);

I know that it's kinda redundant to pass table name twice, but I think that's the easiest here.

Hope somebody finds above useful :-).

declare n number(10);

begin
   select count(*) into n from tab where tname='TEST';

   if (n = 0) then 
      execute immediate 
      'create table TEST ( ID NUMBER(3), NAME VARCHAR2 (30) NOT NULL)';
   end if;
end;

Please try:

SET SERVEROUTPUT ON
DECLARE
v_emp int:=0;
BEGIN
  SELECT count(*) into v_emp FROM dba_tables where table_name = 'EMPLOYEE'; 

  if v_emp<=0 then
     EXECUTE IMMEDIATE 'create table EMPLOYEE ( ID NUMBER(3), NAME VARCHAR2(30) NOT NULL)';
  end if;
END;

As Rene also commented, it's quite uncommon to check first and then create the table. If you want to have a running code according to your method, this will be:

declare
nCount NUMBER;
v_sql LONG;

begin
SELECT count(*) into nCount FROM dba_tables where table_name = 'EMPLOYEE';
IF(nCount <= 0)
THEN
v_sql:='
create table EMPLOYEE
(
ID NUMBER(3),
NAME VARCHAR2(30) NOT NULL
)';
execute immediate v_sql;

END IF;
end;

But I'd rather go catch on the Exception, saves you some unnecessary lines of code:

declare
v_sql LONG;
begin

v_sql:='create table EMPLOYEE
  (
  ID NUMBER(3),
  NAME VARCHAR2(30) NOT NULL
  )';
execute immediate v_sql;

EXCEPTION
    WHEN OTHERS THEN
      IF SQLCODE = -955 THEN
        NULL; -- suppresses ORA-00955 exception
      ELSE
         RAISE;
      END IF;
END; 
/