May 2010

Today I installed for the first time the patchset 10.2.0.5. While reading the README file, I noticed the following piece of information.
To enable a new native full outer join implementation in the database, a user has to set the following underscore parameter:
_optimizer_native_full_outer_join =force
You can set this parameter for the system or for a specific session.
Besides [...]

It was ten years ago that asktom was "born" (and five years and a month ago this blog was)...

The first question asked was about Oracle 7.3 on a Sun 5.5.1 machine - in early 2000 (right after we got by that year 2000 thing). Funny, the last time it was updated was.... just a little more than 3 months ago - it is still alive...

Man oh man - have things changed since. I stand at about 12,000 published Q&A's (about 40,000 in total - not all get published for various reasons...) I have 10 new ones in the queue (will get to them soon - have lots of travel planned for today and the week in fact)...

I've learned a lot in the last ten years - things have changed considerably.

Remember what a "big" server looked like in 2000? Remember what they cost? Think about how now you can buy stuff off of the shelf on your credit card that blows them away.

In 1997 - we were doing terabyte test to scales - a terabyte was such a big deal then that we would put out a press release. Now we have a database machine with 5tb of flash cache just to buffer part of the database.... A terabyte is nothing - my son would be disappointed in any laptop with less than that for storage...

It is only because things keep changing so fast, so much - that this stuff stays interesting. Imagine if it were still like 1993 (when I joined Oracle) 17 years later. It would be pretty boring...

Anyway, thanks for all of the great questions - looking forward to more...

I wanted to talk about a few of the bugs and patches you need to be aware of if you plan to use DBMS_STATS.COPY_TABLE_STATS. Believe me, when entering the world of stats on (sub-)partitioned objects, you had better be prepared to spend a lot of time on My Oracle Support and a little time applying patches. It's a complex picture but I'll try to simplify it as much as possible here.

10.2.0.3 or 10.2.0.4 (or, late update ... 10.2.0.5)

All of the posts so far have been based on the 10.2.0.4 patchset with additional one-off patches applied where necessary (more below). Although part of me can understand the resistance to applying new patchsets because of the additional testing, change management and outages required, I think it's asking for trouble to be on older patchsets if you're using newer features such as DBMS_STATS.COPY_TABLE_STATS. For example, as far as I'm aware COPY_TABLE_STATS is not truly supported in 10.2.0.3 but I've seen a number of people using it.

These features are being worked on continuously, as you'll see in the rest of this post, so I think you'll want to apply the latest patches on top of the latest patchset where possible.

So you should take my bitching about the new availability of 10.2.0.5 with a pinch of salt. In fact, I found myself quite excited that there might be some fixes for issues I've found. Back to 10.2.0.5 later ...

High/Low Partition Key Values

Query transformation is a set of techniques used by the optimizer to rewrite a query and optimizer it better. Few optimization paths open up to the optimizer after query transformation. Some query transformations must be costed to be chosen and some do not need to be costed. For example, if a table can be eliminated completely from the join, then that transformation is applied and need to cost that transformation is minimal.

Test case

We will use the following test case to illustrate the concepts behind Query transformation. Some of the optimizations that we see here works from version 11gR1 onwards and so, these test cases might not work in the versions 10g and below.

create table backup.t1 (n1 number not null primary key, n2 number not null, n3 varchar2(256) );
insert into backup.t1 select n1, n1, lpad ( n1, 250,'x') from (select level n1 from dual connect by level <=100);
create table backup.t2 (n1 number not null primary key , n2 number not null, n3 varchar2(256) );
alter table backup.t1 add constrainT t1_fk foreign key  (n2) references backup.t2(n1)
insert into backup.t2 select n1, n1, lpad ( n1, 250,'x') from (select level n1 from dual connect by level <=100);
insert into backup.t1 select n1, n1, lpad ( n1, 250,'x') from (select level n1 from dual connect by level <=100);

Join elimination (JE)

JE is a technique in which one or more tables can be eliminated from the execution plan without altering functional behavior. In the listing 1-1, query selects columns from the table t1 only, but there exists a join predicate between t1 and t2 in that query. Further, no columns are selected from table t2 in this query and join to t2 simply serves as to verify the existence of foreign key values. Enabled Foreign key constraint between these two tables establishes the existence check already and so, there is no need for explicit existence check in the query also. Join to table t2 can be eliminated by the optimizer safely.

select /*+ gather_plan_statistics */ t1.* from t1, t2 where t1.n2 = t2.n1;
select *  from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor('','','allstats last'))
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id  | Operation         | Name | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows |   A-Time   | Buffers |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|   1 |  TABLE ACCESS FULL| T1   |      1 |     82 |    100 |00:00:00.01 |      13 |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Listing 1-1 :JE example case 1

As you see from the listing 1-1, Table T2 is removed from the execution plan. Since there is a valid foreign key constraint, optimizer eliminated the join condition to that table t2.

Let’s also discuss another Join Elimination test case. In the Listing 1-2, predicate is “t1.n2 not in (select t2.n1 from t2)”. As the enabled foreign key constraint dictates that this predicate will always be false and no rows will be returned. Optimizer promptly identified this condition and added a filter predicate in the step 1 with “NULL is NOT NULL” as a predicate. Step 1 is executed before step 2; Step 2 is never executed as the value of Starts column is zero in the execution plan.

SQL_ID  d09kmzum9wgta, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select /*+ gather_plan_statistics */ t1.* from t1 where t1.n2 not in
(select t2.n1 from t2 )

Plan hash value: 3332582666
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id  | Operation          | Name | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows |   A-Time   |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
|   0 | SELECT STATEMENT   |      |      1 |        |      0 |00:00:00.01 |
|*  1 |  FILTER            |      |      1 |        |      0 |00:00:00.01 |
|   2 |   TABLE ACCESS FULL| T1   |      0 |    100 |      0 |00:00:00.01 |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
   1 - filter(NULL IS NOT NULL)

Listing 1-2 :JE example case 2

Listing 1-3 provides another variation of JE.

select /*+ gather_plan_statistics */ t1.* from t1 where t1.n2 in
(select t2.n1 from t2 )

Plan hash value: 3617692013
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id  | Operation         | Name | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows |   A-Time   | Buffers |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|   0 | SELECT STATEMENT  |      |      1 |        |    100 |00:00:00.01 |      14 |
|   1 |  TABLE ACCESS FULL| T1   |      1 |    100 |    100 |00:00:00.01 |      14 |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Listing 1-3 :JE example case 2

Following output shows the trace lines from the 10053 trace file.
JE: Considering Join Elimination on query block SEL$5DA710D3 (#1)
*************************
Join Elimination (JE)
*************************
JE: cfro: T1 objn:74684 col#:2 dfro:T2 dcol#:2
JE: cfro: T1 objn:74684 col#:2 dfro:T2 dcol#:2
Query block (0E0D43D0) before join elimination:
SQL:******* UNPARSED QUERY IS *******
SELECT “T1″.”N1″ “N1″,”T1″.”N2″ “N2″,”T1″.”N3″ “N3″ FROM “CBO3″.”T2″ “T2″,”CBO3″.”T1″ “T1″ WHERE “T1″.”N2″=”T2″.”N1″
JE: eliminate table: T2
Registered qb: SEL$14EF7918 0xe0d43d0 (JOIN REMOVED FROM QUERY BLOCK SEL$5DA710D3; SEL$5DA710D3; “T2″@”SEL$2″)

Filter Predicate(s) Generation from constraints

Various filter predicates are generated and added to the execution plan using enabled and validated constraints (check, not null constraints).

In the Listing 1-4, columns n1 and n2 has enabled valid NOT NULL constraints that precludes null values in the columns n1 and n2. Query in the listing 1-4 has predicate “n1 is null or n2 is null” which can never be true. This fact is used by the optimizer to improve the execution plan. Filter predicate (NULL IS NOT NULL) is added in step 1 which will be FALSE. So, Step 2 is never executed as the value of Starts column is 0 in the execution plan. This means that step (2) in the execution plan was never executed and table T1 was never accessed.

select /*+ gather_plan_statistics */ * from t1 where n1 is null or n2 is null;
select *  from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor('','','allstats last'));
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id  | Operation          | Name | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows |   A-Time   |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
|*  1 |  FILTER            |      |      1 |        |      0 |00:00:00.01 |
|   2 |   TABLE ACCESS FULL| T1   |      0 |    100 |      0 |00:00:00.01 |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
   1 - filter(NULL IS NOT NULL)

Listing 1-4: Filter predicate generation from NOT NULL constraint.

Let’s add a check constraint to this column to explain this further. In the listing 1-5 a check constraint is added which specifies that “n1 200 and generated predicate n1<200 will nullify each other leading to an always FALSE condition. Optimizer identified this condition and added a filter predicate in step 1: NULL IS NOT NULL.

alter table t1 add constraint t1_n1_lt_150 check (n1 200;
select *  from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor('','','allstats last'));
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id  | Operation          | Name | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows |   A-Time   |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
|*  1 |  FILTER            |      |      1 |        |      0 |00:00:00.01 |
|*  2 |   TABLE ACCESS FULL| T1   |      0 |     20 |      0 |00:00:00.01 |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
   1 - filter(NULL IS NOT NULL)
   2 - filter("N1">200)

Listing 1-5:Filter predicate generation from a check constraint

Following lines from the trace file generated from event 10053 shows that a predicate n1<200 is added; This auto-generated predicate and existing predicate canceled each other leading to an eternally FALSE condition.

kkogcp: try to generate transitive predicate from check constraints for SEL$5DA710D3 (#0)
constraint: “T1″.”N1″<200
predicates with check contraints: "T1"."N2"="T2"."N1" AND "T1"."N1"<200
after transitive predicate generation: "T1"."N2"="T2"."N1" AND "T1"."N1"<200
finally: "T1"."N2"="T2"."N1"
apadrv-start: call(in-use=1056, alloc=16344), compile(in-use=44792, alloc=46272)
kkoqbc-start

SJC: Set to Join Conversion

In some cases, the optimizer can convert a set operator to a join operator. Interestingly, this feature is not enabled by default (up to 11gR1). In the listing 1-6, we enable this parameter. A MINUS set operation has been converted to a join operation.

alter session set "_convert_set_to_join"=true;
select /*+ gather_plan_statistics  */ n2 from t1 minus select n1 from t2
Plan hash value: 3050591313
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------...
| Id  | Operation           | Name         | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows |   A-Time   |...
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|   0 | SELECT STATEMENT    |              |      1 |        |      0 |00:00:00.01 |...
|   1 |  HASH UNIQUE        |              |      1 |     99 |      0 |00:00:00.01 |
|   2 |   NESTED LOOPS ANTI |              |      1 |     99 |      0 |00:00:00.01 |
|   3 |    TABLE ACCESS FULL| T1           |      1 |    100 |    100 |00:00:00.01 |
|*  4 |    INDEX UNIQUE SCAN| SYS_C0010995 |    100 |      1 |    100 |00:00:00.01 |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
   4 - access("N2"="N1")

Listing 1-6: SJC

There is also a new hint set_to_join with this new feature.

/*+
  ...
      OPT_PARAM('_convert_set_to_join' 'true')
  ...
      SET_TO_JOIN(@"SET$1")
  ...
  */

SU: Subquery Unnesting

Subqueries can be unnested in to a join. Listing 1-7 shows that a subquery is unnested in to a view and then joined to other row sources. In this listing, a correlated subquery is moved in to a view VW_SQ_1, unnested and then joined using Nested Loops Join technique. There are many different variations of Subquery Unnesting possible, but the crux of the matter is that subqueries can be unnested, joined and then costed.

 select /*+ gather_plan_statistics  */ n1 from t1 where n1 >
	(select max(n2) from t2 where t2.n1 = t1.n1)
Plan hash value: 2311753844
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------...
| Id  | Operation                       | Name         | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|   0 | SELECT STATEMENT                |              |      1 |        |      0 |
|   1 |  NESTED LOOPS                   |              |      1 |      1 |      0 |
|   2 |   VIEW                          | VW_SQ_1      |      1 |      5 |    100 |
|*  3 |    FILTER                       |              |      1 |        |    100 |
|   4 |     HASH GROUP BY               |              |      1 |      5 |    100 |
|   5 |      TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID| T2           |      1 |    100 |    100 |
|*  6 |       INDEX RANGE SCAN          | SYS_C0010995 |      1 |    100 |    100 |
|*  7 |   INDEX UNIQUE SCAN             | SYS_C0010992 |    100 |      1 |      0 |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
   3 - filter(MAX("N2")<200)
   6 - access("T2"."N1""MAX(N2)")

SU is one reason why there are many performance issues after a database upgrade to 10g and above. Cost of unnested subquery will go up or down leading to an unfortunate choice of not-so-optimal execution plan.

Use of ORDERED hint can really play havoc with SU feature too. For example, in the listing 1-8, join between t1 and t2 is preferred followed by other joins. You would expect to see the leading table in the join to be T1, but the leading row source is VW_SQ_1.

select /*+ gather_plan_statistics ORDERED  */ t1.n1, t2.n1 from t1 , t2
where t1.n1 = t2.n1 and t1.n1 > (select max(n2) from t2 where t2.n1 =t1.n1)
Plan hash value: 3904485247
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------...
| Id  | Operation                        | Name         | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------...
|   0 | SELECT STATEMENT                 |              |      1 |        |      0 |...
|   1 |  NESTED LOOPS                    |              |      1 |      1 |      0 |
|   2 |   NESTED LOOPS                   |              |      1 |      1 |      0 |
|   3 |    VIEW                          | VW_SQ_1      |      1 |      5 |    100 |
|*  4 |     FILTER                       |              |      1 |        |    100 |
|   5 |      HASH GROUP BY               |              |      1 |      5 |    100 |
|   6 |       TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID| T2           |      1 |    100 |    100 |
|*  7 |        INDEX RANGE SCAN          | SYS_C0010995 |      1 |    100 |    100 |
|*  8 |    INDEX UNIQUE SCAN             | SYS_C0010992 |    100 |      1 |      0 |
|*  9 |   INDEX UNIQUE SCAN              | SYS_C0010995 |      0 |      1 |      0 |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
   4 - filter(MAX("N2")<200)
   7 - access("T2"."N1""MAX(N2)")
   9 - access("T1"."N1"="T2"."N1")
       filter("T2"."N1"<200)

Is CBO not honoring our hint? It is honoring our hint. Except that ORDERED hint was applied after the SU transformation and so, unnested view is in the leading row source. A variation of the transfromed query from 10053 trace file is printed below. With ORDERED hint, of course, CBO must choose the unnested view as the leading row source. Use LEADING hint instead of ORDERED hint if necessary.

SELECT /*+ ORDERED */ “T1″.”N1″ “N1″,”T2″.”N1″ “N1″ FROM
(SELECT MAX(“T2″.”N2″) “MAX(N2)”,”T2″.”N1″ “ITEM_1″ FROM “CBO3″.”T2″ “T2″ GROUP BY “T2″.”N1″) “VW_SQ_2″,
“CBO3″.”T1″ “T1″,”CBO3″.”T2″ “T2″ WHERE “T1″.”N1″=”T2″.”N1″ AND “T1″.”N1″>”VW_SQ_2″.”MAX(N2)” AND “VW_SQ_2″.”ITEM_1″=”T1″.”N1″

Summary

There are many techniques to cover in one blog entry. We will discuss these features further in upcoming blogs. This can be read in more conventional format: query_transformation_part_1_orainternals