This Friday Philosophy was prompted by a discusion between some OakTable people about did we think “good” DBAs should know PL/SQL? Not all the tricks, bulk processing, using all the built-ins, but able to write PL/SQL with cursor loops and some exception handling that could eg cycle thorough tables and archive off data or implement some logon trigger functionality.
My response was “that depends on the age of the DBA”.
If you had asked me that question 15 years ago I would have said Yes, a good DAB would and should know PL/SQL.
If you had asked me 10 years ago I would have said I’d hope they would and most DBAs I respected has some PL/SQL skills.
If you had asked me 5 years ago I would have sighed and had a little rant about how they should but the younger ones don’t and that is wrong.
I’ve been grabbing a few minutes here and there over the last couple of work days trying to get something working with no joy. I this case it is a DAD entry in the “dads.conf” file on the OHS running as part of 11gR2 Forms & Reports Services on WebLogic 11g (10.3.6). I started to think that maybe this functionality is disabled on the installation or something like that, but couldn’t find any reason for that to be the case.
In a fit of desperation I came home tonight, fired up a DB and a F&R installation, defined a DAD and it worked first time. Aaaarrrggghhhh!!!!!
On the plus side, I know there is nothing fundamentally weird about the OHS installation that comes with 11gR2 F&R Services. On the down side, I still have no flippin’ clue why it is not working on the installation at work. Think I need to get in early tomorrow and focus on it for a little while. No doubt it will be something stupid I’ve missed while trying to do a bunch of different things at once.
I just wanted to put up a post about DBMS_APPLICATION_INFO. This is a fantastic little built-in PL/SQL package that Oracle has provided since Oracle 8 to allow you to instrument your code. i.e record what it is doing. I’m a big fan of DBMS_APPLICATION_INFO and have used it several times to help identify where in an application time is being spent and how that pattern of time has altered.
Some PL/SQL developers use it and some don’t. It seems to me that it’s use comes down to where you work, as most PL/SQL developers are aware of it – but not everyone uses it (a friend of mine made the comment recently that “all good PL/SQL developers use it“. I can understand his point but don’t 100% agree).
Currently at Tom Kyte’s session regarding topics new, improved or coming in Oracle Application Development. Tom told about the history APEX has gone thru and the current setup with the APEX Listener and even the “PL/SQL Gateway” was mentioned. I always have to laugh a bit because this last one touches the XDB Protocol Server …
How many of you have seen the step COLLECTION ITERATOR PICKLER FETCH appearing in Explain Plans and wondered “what is a Pickler Fetch”?
{Note – make sure you check out the comments on this post if you are interested in Pickler Fetches. Timur Akhmadeev and Dom Brooks correct and extend my original efforts}.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Id | Operation | Name | Rows | Bytes | Cost (%CPU)| Time | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | 0 | SELECT STATEMENT | | | | 31 (100)| | |* 1 | FILTER | | | | | | | 2 | NESTED LOOPS | | | | | | | 3 | NESTED LOOPS | | 1 | 71 | 31 (4)| 00:00:01 | | 4 | SORT UNIQUE | | 4 | 8 | 26 (0)| 00:00:01 | | 5 | COLLECTION ITERATOR PICKLER FETCH| | 4 | 8 | 26 (0)| 00:00:01 | |* 6 | INDEX RANGE SCAN | CHHE_PK | 1 | | 2 (0)| 00:00:01 | | 7 | TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID | CHILD_HEAP | 1 | 69 | 4 (0)| 00:00:01 | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is where Oracle works through a SQL array. I’ve usually seen this within PL/SQL where an array variable is used within a procedure or package, being passed in containing a set of accounts or customers that are of interest and is used with a cursor. But you might also see it as the step processing the output of a pipelined function (one that returns a set of “rows”) being cast into a table. See this example by Tom Kyte. Tom also suggests that it is called a “Pickler” fetch as the data is pickled – packed and formatted. I never knew that, I just thought someone in Oracle development was having a giggle and it was “Pickled” as it was preserved from the PL/SQL side of the SQL engine. It seems that I was a little off-target with that.
{My thanks to Timur (see comments) who corrected me when I said it was a PL/SQL array. It is not, it is a SQL object}.
The above plan was generated for the below SQL statement:
cursor c_collect is
select PARE_ID
,CRE_DATE
,VC_1
from child_heap
where pare_id in (select id from table(p_parents) p)
and cre_date >=trunc(p_date) and cre_date < trunc(p_date+1);Anyway, I just wanted to make a few comments about Pickler Fetches:
I’m now going to cover each of those points in turn. If you just wanted to know what a pickler fetch is and I’ve answered that for you, I suggest you go back to whatever you were doing before you started reading this
By “not very good at looking inside pickler fetches” I mean that the CBO seems to make a poor “base it on the first seen array” (V11 up) or utterly fails to identify how many records are inside the SQL array (V10 down), depending on the Oracle version. From an Oracle 10.2.0.4 system I’ve got the two following examples:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Id | Operation | Name | Rows| Bytes | Cost (%CPU)| Time | Pstart -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | 9 | NESTED LOOPS | | 1 | 139 | 114 (1)| 00:00:01 | |* 10 | HASH JOIN SEMI | | 1 | 50 | 11 (10)| 00:00:01 | |* 11 | TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID | ABCDE_ABCDEFGHIJ | 3 | 144 | 4 (0)| 00:00:01 | |* 12 | INDEX RANGE SCAN | XX_PK | 3 | | 3 (0)| 00:00:01 | | 13 | COLLECTION ITERATOR PICKLER FETCH| | | | | | | 14 | PARTITION RANGE ITERATOR | | 6 | 534 | 103 (0)| 00:00:01 | KEY |* 15 | INDEX RANGE SCAN | AAXX_PK | 6 | 534 | 103 (0)| 00:00:01 | KEY
Note the cost and expected rows for the Pickler Fetch step. Or rather, the lack of them.
This would manifest itself in the following way in OEM screens:
Note the cardinality of the Pickler Fetch step is 0 {sorry, I cut off the column headings}. This resulted in this step having a cost of 0 and all the subsequent steps of having an expected cardinality of one and having very low costs – between 1 and 3 {Again, not shown, sorry}.
The end result of this was that the CBO struggled to accuratley cost any given plan and came up with several, usually quite terrible, plans that it swapped between as other table stats varied. The CBO was picking between very complex plans with total costs of 100 or 200 or so! Any difference was “significant”.
Please note, OPTIMIZER_DYNAMIC_SAMPLING was set to 4 on this system and I tried hints and session settings to higher levels and they did not prompt the CBO to look into the array, on 10.2.0.4 at least.
In 11.1 things seem to be better, as is shown in the explain plan at the top of this post. The step has a cost. I have to confess, I have not tested this very much on 11 {and if anyone has, feel free to correct me/add enlightenment via comments or pointers to other sources}, but it seems to set the cardinality to the number of elements the Pickler Fetch finds in the first itteration. Unless it uses the same sort of trick Oracle 11 now uses for bind variables (detecting when the value supplied is out of range and generates a new plan) this is going to lead to the old and much ‘loved’ issue of the plan being fixed by the first execution, irrespective of how suitable that plan is.
How do you fix this issue? Well, I resort to the cardinality hint. Usually the number of records being passed into the array is not too variable and any half-decent value is better than nothing in Oracle 10 and before. As for in 11, I like stating the value rather than risking a variable ‘first seen at parsing time’ setting. It is a judgement call. The below is from 11.1 but I’ve used it extensively in 10.2, where the impact is much more significant:
select PARE_ID
,CRE_DATE
,VC_1
from child_heap
where pare_id in (select id from table(p_parents) )
and cre_date >=trunc(p_date) and cre_date < trunc(p_date+1)
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation | Name | Rows | Bytes |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 0 | SELECT STATEMENT | | | |
|* 1 | FILTER | | | |
| 2 | NESTED LOOPS | | | |
| 3 | NESTED LOOPS | | 1 | 71 |
| 4 | SORT UNIQUE | | 4 | 8 |
| 5 | COLLECTION ITERATOR PICKLER FETCH| | 4 | 8 |
|* 6 | INDEX RANGE SCAN | CHHE_PK | 1 | |
| 7 | TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID | CHILD_HEAP | 1 | 69 |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
-- and now with hint
--
select PARE_ID
,CRE_DATE
,VC_1
from child_heap
where pare_id in (select /*+ CARDINALITY(p,11) */ id from table(p_parents) p)
and cre_date >=trunc(p_date) and cre_date < trunc(p_date+1)
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation | Name | Rows | Bytes |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 0 | SELECT STATEMENT | | | |
|* 1 | FILTER | | | |
| 2 | NESTED LOOPS | | | |
| 3 | NESTED LOOPS | | 1 | 71 |
| 4 | SORT UNIQUE | | 11 | 22 |
| 5 | COLLECTION ITERATOR PICKLER FETCH| | 11 | 22 |
|* 6 | INDEX RANGE SCAN | CHHE_PK | 1 | |
| 7 | TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID | CHILD_HEAP | 1 | 69 |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------Note the change of ROWS to 11 in step 5. In V10 this is a change from blank to 11 and in real situations, do not be at all suprised if the plan changes dramatically – away from nested loop access and more to hash joins. {I should note, the cardinality hint is not documented in Oracle 10 or 11 and any use you make of it in live code is your responsibility. Sorry about that}.
What about my second point, about testing them? Well, as an example of testing Pickler processing of SQL arrays, which are defined SQL types, this is what I had to do to run my basic test:
-- pare_types_demo.sql
--
-- create and use some record and table types.
--
create or replace type pare_rec as object
(id number(10)
,name varchar2(100))
/
create or replace type pare_rec_t
as table of pare_rec
/
--
set serveroutput on size unli
--
create or replace procedure get_children
(p_parents in pare_rec_t
,p_date in date)
is
cursor c_collect is
select PARE_ID
,CRE_DATE
,VC_1
from child_heap
where pare_id in (select id from table(p_parents))
and cre_date >=trunc(p_date) and cre_date < trunc(p_date+1);
begin
for v_rec in c_collect
loop
dbms_output.put_line('parent '||to_char(v_rec.pare_id)||' on '||to_char(v_rec.cre_date)
||' value '||v_rec.vc_1);
end loop;
end;
/
--
declare
l_date date :=sysdate-100;
l_parents pare_rec_t;
begin
l_parents :=pare_rec_T(PARE_REC(1,'ERIC')
,PARE_REC(2,'BARRY')
,PARE_REC(3,'KERMIT')
,PARE_REC(4,'GONZO')
);
GET_CHILDREN (L_PARENTS,L_DATE);
END;
/I had to create a table type, which is the SQL array, and this was based on an object type which I had to create first {you can have table types based on standard SQL types but very often they are based on a “row” object}. After creating the stored procedure, I had to define and populate the array with a set of records which I then passed in to my procedure call . {If you want to repeat this yourself, check out my postings on IOTs to get the table creation statement for table CHILD_HEAP}.
Now, I created those types so I had access to them. If those types do not belong to you you have to be granted execute on the types to reference them. Not select, execute. Some sites have a pretty strict attuitude to granting execute on anything and types seem to get forgotten when the execute priviledges against packages and procedures are set up. In a recent situation I had, I was forced to do some testing work on Live and it had taken people with big sticks to get me select access on data. Execute privileges were totally refused. Calmly explaining why it was needed and how it was acceptable fell on not so much deaf as bricked-up ears.
So, for testing, the reference to an array passed in is often replaced by a little sub-select. After all, quite often what is being passed in for a pickler fetch is actually a set of records {but a subset of the rows} from a table that has been collected by a previous processing step.
As an example of such a change:
where ev.SYS_ID = pag.SYS_ID and ev.EXT_ID = pag.EXT_ID and P_EXT_ID = pag.EXT_ID and P_SYS_ID = pag.SYS_ID and ev.CREATED_DT >= pag.START_DT and (ev.ID, ev.TX) in (select ID,TX from table(P_ARRAY_IN)) -- --BECOMES -- where ev.SYS_ID = pag.SYS_ID and ev.EXT_ID = pag.EXT_ID and P_EXT_ID = pag.EXT_ID and P_SYS_ID = pag.SYS_ID and ev.CREATED_DT >= pag.START_DT --and (ev.ID, ev.TX) in (select ID,TX from table(P_ARRAY_IN)) --NB swap back in before release! and (ev.ID, ev.TX) in (select ID,TX from CUSTOMERS WHERE SURNAME='WIDLAKE' and FFNAME='MARTIN')
All that has changed is that we now have a little sub-select rather than the casting of the SQL array into a table and, heck, as the developer might say, those were the records that would have been passed in, the code still works as expected and the same data comes back. No identifying which object types you need, no getting the execute permissions, no populating it yourself in the test harness, we can just swap back in the array later.
{I apologise to good developers, who even now are throwing imaginary darts at me. I know Dawn, you would certainly not do this. But I’ve seen it a couple of times. Developers have enough on their plate to go worrying about esoteric aspects of the CBO}
But the thing is, Oracle can look at that select and evaluate it’s cost and get an expected cardinality. The pickler fetch version has the issues I’ve just covered. I had to deal with a situation just like this last year, it does happen. In dev it was fine, in pre-live testing it was not.
What about memory leaks? Well, I had lots of issues with SQL arrays and memory leaks with oracle 10.1. and 10.2 at one client site and there is a documented bug in oracle 8 with pickler fetch and memory leaks but I have to confess, a quick metalink search did not find any hits for Oracle 10 and 11. So maybe you should not trust me on that one. In the situation I saw the arrays were massive, several MB at times, and so if you are using SQL arrays to pass in a modest list of eg accounts or customers, it is not going to be an issue anyway.
You know, this was just going to be a quick post on something I’ve been meaning to mention for months, not a small essay
.
Someone asked me a question about generating HTML with embedded images from PL/SQL and my answer started to spiral out of control, so I figured I’d just write it as an article.
Cheers
Tim…
This post was motivated by a recent discussion I had where I mentioned that Adaptive Cursor Sharing (ACS) does not work with embedded SQL in PL/SQL, but when looking for an existing post realized that I didn't find any good and freely available examples of that limitation of ACS.
Therefore I decided to put together this post that outlines what ACS is supposed to do, its inherent limitations and finally shed some light on the specific limitation that started its life with the description that "it does not work with embedded SQL in PL/SQL".
Adaptive Cursor Sharing (ACS) has been introduced in Oracle 11g to address the potential threat of cursor sharing and bind variables - yes, you have read correctly: The usage of bind variables can be a possible threat if different values of bind variables are executed using the same execution plan, but actually would require different execution plans to prevent poor performing executions.
So ACS allows Oracle to detect such problems and selectively "unshare" cursors, which means that Oracle creates one or more additional child cursors for different (ranges) of bind values.
However, there are a couple of limitations to this strategy. Let's have a look at a working example of ACS. Therefore I run the following script against database versions 11.1.0.7 and 11.2.0.2:
set echo on define on tab off
drop table t;
purge table t;
create table t as select * from dba_objects, (select rownum from dual connect by level <= 20);
create index i on t(object_id);
exec dbms_stats.gather_table_stats(user, 'T', method_opt => 'for all columns size 1')
set echo on
select count(*), min(object_id)
, max(object_id) from t;
set echo on linesize 200 heading off newpage none tab off serveroutput off
alter session set statistics_level = all;
alter system flush buffer_cache;
alter system flush shared_pool;
var x number
exec :x := 100000
-- pause
set timing on
select
sum(row_num)
from
(
select
row_number() over (partition by object_type order by object_name) as row_num
, t.*
from
t
where
object_id > :x
);
column prev_sql_id new_value sql_id noprint
column sid new_value session_id noprint
select
prev_sql_id
, sid
from
v$session
where
sid = sys_context('userenv', 'sid');
select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor('&sql_id',null,'ALLSTATS LAST'));
exec :x := 1
select
sum(row_num)
from
(
select
row_number() over (partition by object_type order by object_name) as row_num
, t.*
from
t
where
object_id > :x
);
select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor(null,null,'ALLSTATS LAST'));
exec :x := 1
select
sum(row_num)
from
(
select
row_number() over (partition by object_type order by object_name) as row_num
, t.*
from
t
where
object_id > :x
);
select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor(null,null,'ALLSTATS LAST'));
set heading on
select
sql_id
, child_number
, executions
, parse_calls
, buffer_gets
, is_bind_sensitive
, is_bind_aware
from
v$sql
where
sql_id = '&sql_id';
and I get the following result from 11.2.0.2 (and 11.1.0.7):
SQL>
SQL> drop table t;
Table dropped.
SQL> purge table t;
Table purged.
SQL> create table t as select * from dba_objects, (select rownum from dual connect by level <= 20);
Table created.
SQL> create index i on t(object_id);
Index created.
SQL>
SQL> exec dbms_stats.gather_table_stats(user, 'T', method_opt => 'for all columns size 1')
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
SQL>
SQL> set echo on
SQL>
SQL> select count(*), min(object_id)
2 , max(object_id) from t;
COUNT(*) MIN(OBJECT_ID) MAX(OBJECT_ID)
---------- -------------- --------------
1457480 2 75795
SQL>
SQL> set echo on linesize 200 heading off newpage none tab off serveroutput off
SQL>
SQL> alter session set statistics_level = all;
Session altered.
SQL>
SQL> alter system flush buffer_cache;
System altered.
SQL>
SQL> alter system flush shared_pool;
System altered.
SQL>
SQL> var x number
SQL>
SQL> exec :x := 100000
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
SQL>
SQL> -- pause
SQL>
SQL> set timing on
SQL>
SQL> select
2 sum(row_num)
3 from
4 (
5 select
6 row_number() over (partition by object_type order by object_name) as row_num
7 , t.*
8 from
9 t
10 where
11 object_id > :x
12 );
Elapsed: 00:00:00.09
SQL>
SQL> column prev_sql_id new_value sql_id noprint
SQL> column sid new_value session_id noprint
SQL>
SQL> select
2 prev_sql_id
3 , sid
4 from
5 v$session
6 where
7 sid = sys_context('userenv', 'sid');
Elapsed: 00:00:00.15
SQL>
SQL> select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor('&sql_id',null,'ALLSTATS LAST'));
old 1: select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor('&sql_id',null,'ALLSTATS LAST'))
new 1: select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor('fmbq5ytmh0hng',null,'ALLSTATS LAST'))
SQL_ID fmbq5ytmh0hng, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select sum(row_num) from ( select
row_number() over (partition by object_type order by object_name) as
row_num , t.* from t
where object_id > :x )
Plan hash value: 1399240396
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation | Name | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows | A-Time | Buffers | Reads | OMem | 1Mem | Used-Mem |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 0 | SELECT STATEMENT | | 1 | | 1 |00:00:00.01 | 3 | 3 | | | |
| 1 | SORT AGGREGATE | | 1 | 1 | 1 |00:00:00.01 | 3 | 3 | | | |
| 2 | VIEW | | 1 | 13 | 0 |00:00:00.01 | 3 | 3 | | | |
| 3 | WINDOW SORT | | 1 | 13 | 0 |00:00:00.01 | 3 | 3 | 1024 | 1024 | |
| 4 | TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID| T | 1 | 13 | 0 |00:00:00.01 | 3 | 3 | | | |
|* 5 | INDEX RANGE SCAN | I | 1 | 13 | 0 |00:00:00.01 | 3 | 3 | | | |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
5 - access("OBJECT_ID">:X)
25 rows selected.
Elapsed: 00:00:01.74
SQL>
SQL> exec :x := 1
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
Elapsed: 00:00:00.00
SQL>
SQL> select
2 sum(row_num)
3 from
4 (
5 select
6 row_number() over (partition by object_type order by object_name) as row_num
7 , t.*
8 from
9 t
10 where
11 object_id > :x
12 );
2.7361E+11
Elapsed: 00:00:17.12
SQL>
SQL> select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor(null,null,'ALLSTATS LAST'));
SQL_ID fmbq5ytmh0hng, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select sum(row_num) from ( select
row_number() over (partition by object_type order by object_name) as
row_num , t.* from t
where object_id > :x )
Plan hash value: 1399240396
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation | Name | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows | A-Time | Buffers | Reads | Writes | OMem | 1Mem | Used-Mem | Used-Tmp|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 0 | SELECT STATEMENT | | 1 | | 1 |00:00:17.12 | 1460K| 35371 | 10532 | | | | |
| 1 | SORT AGGREGATE | | 1 | 1 | 1 |00:00:17.12 | 1460K| 35371 | 10532 | | | | |
| 2 | VIEW | | 1 | 13 | 1457K|00:00:16.94 | 1460K| 35371 | 10532 | | | | |
| 3 | WINDOW SORT | | 1 | 13 | 1457K|00:00:16.66 | 1460K| 35371 | 10532 | 93M| 3313K| 37M (1)| 84992 |
| 4 | TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID| T | 1 | 13 | 1457K|00:00:12.01 | 1460K| 24839 | 0 | | | | |
|* 5 | INDEX RANGE SCAN | I | 1 | 13 | 1457K|00:00:01.53 | 3221 | 3220 | 0 | | | | |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
5 - access("OBJECT_ID">:X)
25 rows selected.
Elapsed: 00:00:00.17
SQL>
SQL> exec :x := 1
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
Elapsed: 00:00:00.00
SQL>
SQL> select
2 sum(row_num)
3 from
4 (
5 select
6 row_number() over (partition by object_type order by object_name) as row_num
7 , t.*
8 from
9 t
10 where
11 object_id > :x
12 );
2.7361E+11
Elapsed: 00:00:05.10
SQL>
SQL> select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor(null,null,'ALLSTATS LAST'));
SQL_ID fmbq5ytmh0hng, child number 1
-------------------------------------
select sum(row_num) from ( select
row_number() over (partition by object_type order by object_name) as
row_num , t.* from t
where object_id > :x )
Plan hash value: 2719131525
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation | Name | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows | A-Time | Buffers | Reads | Writes | OMem | 1Mem | Used-Mem | Used-Tmp|
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 0 | SELECT STATEMENT | | 1 | | 1 |00:00:05.10 | 21539 | 29966 | 8375 | | | | |
| 1 | SORT AGGREGATE | | 1 | 1 | 1 |00:00:05.10 | 21539 | 29966 | 8375 | | | | |
| 2 | VIEW | | 1 | 1457K| 1457K|00:00:04.98 | 21539 | 29966 | 8375 | | | | |
| 3 | WINDOW SORT | | 1 | 1457K| 1457K|00:00:04.80 | 21539 | 29966 | 8375 | 74M| 2971K| 37M (1)| 67584 |
|* 4 | TABLE ACCESS FULL| T | 1 | 1457K| 1457K|00:00:01.38 | 21532 | 21528 | 0 | | | | |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
4 - filter("OBJECT_ID">:X)
24 rows selected.
Elapsed: 00:00:00.05
SQL>
SQL> set heading on
SQL>
SQL> select
2 sql_id
3 , child_number
4 , executions
5 , parse_calls
6 , buffer_gets
7 , is_bind_sensitive
8 , is_bind_aware
9 from
10 v$sql
11 where
12 sql_id = '&sql_id';
old 12: sql_id = '&sql_id'
new 12: sql_id = 'fmbq5ytmh0hng'
SQL_ID CHILD_NUMBER EXECUTIONS PARSE_CALLS BUFFER_GETS I I
------------- ------------ ---------- ----------- ----------- - -
fmbq5ytmh0hng 0 2 3 1460762 Y N
fmbq5ytmh0hng 1 1 0 21539 Y Y
Elapsed: 00:00:00.00
SQL>
So I intentionally use bind variables in a dangerous way here: The "object_id > :x" predicate is a potential threat - depending on the value of :x the usage of the index on OBJECT_ID can be a very good or a very bad idea.
From this example we therefore can tell a couple of things you should know about ACS:
1. ACS is not limited to the typical "skewed column data" / "histogram" case. We can see that I explicitly did not create any histograms (method_opt "for all columns size 1"), still ACS marked the cursor as "BIND_SENSITIVE" and eventually created a second child cursor with a more appropriate execution plan for the bind value, because it detected the "expression > :x" predicate.
2. However, and this one of the most important aspects, for ACS to detect the problem, it first has to go wrong at least once. As you can see from the example it was only the second execution using the "bad" bind value that created the child cursor. So depending on how "wrong" things can go - think of a more complex execution plan including multiple joins - it might already be "too late" for your application: If for example a query is not going to return in a reasonable amount of time your application might effectively be "broken" even if ACS might be able to "fix" the problem at the next execution...
3. Another important point to consider is that the ACS information is not stored persistently but only exists in the Shared Pool. This means, if the information is aged out of the Shared Pool for whatever reason, the same mistake has to be made again for ACS to detect the problem. So if your problematic cursors age out of the Shared Pool it will potentially go "wrong" again with the next execution before ACS can come for help.
From this you can see that - although ACS is a great feature - it is not a "Silver Bullet" for all possible cases. You still might need to help your database for those special cases where ACS is not able to support your application properly. How you can help your database? More on that later.
Now let's have a look at the point that ACS "does not work with embedded SQL in PL/SQL". Therefore I put together the following script that in principle does the same as the first script, but this time uses the most commonly used techniques in PL/SQL to execute SQL:
set echo on define on tab off
drop table t;
purge table t;
create table t as select * from dba_objects, (select rownum from dual connect by level <= 20);
create index i on t(object_id);
exec dbms_stats.gather_table_stats(user, 'T', method_opt => 'for all columns size 1')
set echo on
select count(*), min(object_id)
, max(object_id) from t;
set echo on linesize 200 heading on tab off serveroutput off
set timing on
-- This is a workaround that disables also the cursor optimizations in PL/SQL
-- In particular the PL/SQL hold cursor open optimization
-- Therefore the cursor gets reparsed and ACS kicks in
alter session set session_cached_cursors = 0;
--
-- Does this make any difference? No
-- alter session set plsql_optimize_level = 0;
variable sql_id varchar2(255)
-- Static SQL
alter system flush buffer_cache;
alter system flush shared_pool;
declare
x integer;
n_dummy number;
begin
for i in 1..10 loop
if i = 1 then
x := 100000;
else
x := 1;
end if;
select
sum(row_num)
into
n_dummy
from
(
select
row_number() over (partition by object_type order by object_name) as row_num
, t.*
from
t
where
object_id > x
);
if i = 1 then
select
prev_sql_id
into
:sql_id
from
v$session
where
sid = sys_context('userenv', 'sid');
end if;
end loop;
end;
/
select
sql_id
, child_number
, executions
, parse_calls
, buffer_gets
, is_bind_sensitive
, is_bind_aware
from
v$sql
where
sql_id = :sql_id;
set pagesize 0
select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor(:sql_id,null,'+PEEKED_BINDS'));
set pagesize 9999
-- dynamic SQL with binds
alter system flush buffer_cache;
alter system flush shared_pool;
declare
x integer;
n_dummy number;
begin
for i in 1..10 loop
if i = 1 then
x := 100000;
else
x := 1;
end if;
execute immediate '
select
sum(row_num)
from
(
select
row_number() over (partition by object_type order by object_name) as row_num
, t.*
from
t
where
object_id > :x
)' into n_dummy using x;
if i = 1 then
select
prev_sql_id
into
:sql_id
from
v$session
where
sid = sys_context('userenv', 'sid');
end if;
end loop;
end;
/
select
sql_id
, child_number
, executions
, parse_calls
, buffer_gets
, is_bind_sensitive
, is_bind_aware
from
v$sql
where
sql_id = :sql_id;
set pagesize 0
select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor(:sql_id,null,'+PEEKED_BINDS'));
set pagesize 9999
-- dynamic SQL with literals
alter system flush buffer_cache;
alter system flush shared_pool;
declare
x integer;
n_dummy number;
begin
for i in 1..10 loop
if i = 1 then
x := 100000;
else
x := 1;
end if;
execute immediate '
select
sum(row_num)
from
(
select
row_number() over (partition by object_type order by object_name) as row_num
, t.*
from
t
where
object_id > ' || x || '
)' into n_dummy;
if i = 1 then
select
prev_sql_id
into
:sql_id
from
v$session
where
sid = sys_context('userenv', 'sid');
end if;
end loop;
end;
/
select
b.sql_id
, b.child_number
, b.executions
, b.parse_calls
, b.buffer_gets
, b.is_bind_sensitive
, b.is_bind_aware
from
v$sql a, v$sql b
where
a.force_matching_signature = b.force_matching_signature
and a.sql_id = :sql_id;
set pagesize 0
select
c.*
from
v$sql a
, v$sql b
, table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor(b.sql_id)) c
where
a.force_matching_signature = b.force_matching_signature
and a.sql_id = :sql_id;
set pagesize 9999
-- dynamic SQL with binds + OPEN
alter system flush buffer_cache;
alter system flush shared_pool;
declare
x integer;
n_dummy number;
c sys_refcursor;
begin
for i in 1..10 loop
if i = 1 then
x := 100000;
else
x := 1;
end if;
open c for '
select
sum(row_num)
from
(
select
row_number() over (partition by object_type order by object_name) as row_num
, t.*
from
t
where
object_id > :x
)' using x;
fetch c into n_dummy;
close c;
if i = 1 then
select
prev_sql_id
into
:sql_id
from
v$session
where
sid = sys_context('userenv', 'sid');
end if;
end loop;
end;
/
select
sql_id
, child_number
, executions
, parse_calls
, buffer_gets
, is_bind_sensitive
, is_bind_aware
from
v$sql
where
sql_id = :sql_id;
set pagesize 0
select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor(:sql_id,null,'+PEEKED_BINDS'));
set pagesize 9999
So this script executes the same query as used in the first script ten times in a row, again deliberately using the same bind values in the same order: The first execution can benefit from the index, all following executions would better use a full table scan.
These are the different techniques used:
1. Static embedded SQL which are sometimes in PL/SQL are also called "implicit cursors". They should exhibit the same characteristics as explicitly declared cursors, which I haven't included in this script.
2. Dynamic SQL using EXECUTE IMMEDIATE and binds, so the cursor can still be shared
3. Dynamic SQL using EXECUTE IMMEDIATE and literals, which leads to different SQLs and therefore different parent cursors with potentially different executions plans since both will be parsed / optimized independently from each other
4. Dynamic SQL using OPEN / FETCH / CLOSE and binds, so the cursor again can be shared
And this is the result that I get from 11.2.0.2 (11.1.0.7 showed the same):
SQL>
SQL> drop table t;
Table dropped.
SQL> purge table t;
Table purged.
SQL> create table t as select * from dba_objects, (select rownum from dual connect by level <= 20);
Table created.
SQL> create index i on t(object_id);
Index created.
SQL>
SQL> exec dbms_stats.gather_table_stats(user, 'T', method_opt => 'for all columns size 1')
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
SQL>
SQL> set echo on
SQL>
SQL> select count(*), min(object_id)
2 , max(object_id) from t;
COUNT(*) MIN(OBJECT_ID) MAX(OBJECT_ID)
---------- -------------- --------------
1457480 2 75819
SQL>
SQL> set echo on linesize 200 heading on tab off serveroutput off
SQL>
SQL> set timing on
SQL>
SQL> -- This is a workaround that disables also the cursor optimizations in PL/SQL
SQL> -- In particular the PL/SQL hold cursor open optimization
SQL> -- Therefore the cursor gets reparsed and ACS kicks in
SQL> -- alter session set session_cached_cursors = 0;
SQL> --
SQL> -- Does this make any difference? No
SQL> -- alter session set plsql_optimize_level = 0;
Session altered.
Elapsed: 00:00:00.00
SQL>
SQL> variable sql_id varchar2(255)
SQL>
SQL> -- Static SQL
SQL> alter system flush buffer_cache;
System altered.
Elapsed: 00:00:00.03
SQL>
SQL> alter system flush shared_pool;
System altered.
Elapsed: 00:00:00.63
SQL>
SQL> declare
2 x integer;
3 n_dummy number;
4 begin
5 for i in 1..10 loop
6 if i = 1 then
7 x := 100000;
8 else
9 x := 1;
10 end if;
11 select
12 sum(row_num)
13 into
14 n_dummy
15 from
16 (
17 select
18 row_number() over (partition by object_type order by object_name) as row_num
19 , t.*
20 from
21 t
22 where
23 object_id > x
24 );
25 if i = 1 then
26 select
27 prev_sql_id
28 into
29 :sql_id
30 from
31 v$session
32 where
33 sid = sys_context('userenv', 'sid');
34 end if;
35 end loop;
36 end;
37 /
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
Elapsed: 00:02:50.68
SQL>
SQL> select
2 sql_id
3 , child_number
4 , executions
5 , parse_calls
6 , buffer_gets
7 , is_bind_sensitive
8 , is_bind_aware
9 from
10 v$sql
11 where
12 sql_id = :sql_id;
SQL_ID CHILD_NUMBER EXECUTIONS PARSE_CALLS BUFFER_GETS I I
------------- ------------ ---------- ----------- ----------- - -
g89tq3q521rbg 0 10 1 13146414 Y N
Elapsed: 00:00:00.17
SQL>
SQL> set pagesize 0
SQL>
SQL> select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor(:sql_id,null,'+PEEKED_BINDS'));
SQL_ID g89tq3q521rbg, child number 0
-------------------------------------
SELECT SUM(ROW_NUM) FROM ( SELECT ROW_NUMBER() OVER (PARTITION BY
OBJECT_TYPE ORDER BY OBJECT_NAME) AS ROW_NUM , T.* FROM T WHERE
OBJECT_ID > :B1 )
Plan hash value: 1399240396
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation | Name | Rows | Bytes | Cost (%CPU)| Time |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 0 | SELECT STATEMENT | | | | 18 (100)| |
| 1 | SORT AGGREGATE | | 1 | 13 | | |
| 2 | VIEW | | 13 | 169 | 18 (6)| 00:00:01 |
| 3 | WINDOW SORT | | 13 | 507 | 18 (6)| 00:00:01 |
| 4 | TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID| T | 13 | 507 | 17 (0)| 00:00:01 |
|* 5 | INDEX RANGE SCAN | I | 13 | | 3 (0)| 00:00:01 |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peeked Binds (identified by position):
--------------------------------------
1 - :B1 (NUMBER): 100000
Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
5 - access("OBJECT_ID">:B1)
29 rows selected.
Elapsed: 00:00:01.86
SQL>
SQL> set pagesize 9999
SQL>
SQL> -- dynamic SQL with binds
SQL> alter system flush buffer_cache;
System altered.
Elapsed: 00:00:00.09
SQL>
SQL> alter system flush shared_pool;
System altered.
Elapsed: 00:00:00.84
SQL>
SQL> declare
2 x integer;
3 n_dummy number;
4 begin
5 for i in 1..10 loop
6 if i = 1 then
7 x := 100000;
8 else
9 x := 1;
10 end if;
11 execute immediate '
12 select
13 sum(row_num)
14 from
15 (
16 select
17 row_number() over (partition by object_type order by object_name) as row_num
18 , t.*
19 from
20 t
21 where
22 object_id > :x
23 )' into n_dummy using x;
24 if i = 1 then
25 select
26 prev_sql_id
27 into
28 :sql_id
29 from
30 v$session
31 where
32 sid = sys_context('userenv', 'sid');
33 end if;
34 end loop;
35 end;
36 /
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
Elapsed: 00:03:17.26
SQL>
SQL> select
2 sql_id
3 , child_number
4 , executions
5 , parse_calls
6 , buffer_gets
7 , is_bind_sensitive
8 , is_bind_aware
9 from
10 v$sql
11 where
12 sql_id = :sql_id;
SQL_ID CHILD_NUMBER EXECUTIONS PARSE_CALLS BUFFER_GETS I I
------------- ------------ ---------- ----------- ----------- - -
3snga4x0swy99 0 10 1 13146434 Y N
Elapsed: 00:00:00.14
SQL>
SQL> set pagesize 0
SQL>
SQL> select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor(:sql_id,null,'+PEEKED_BINDS'));
SQL_ID 3snga4x0swy99, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select sum(row_num) from (
select row_number() over (partition by object_type
order by object_name) as row_num , t.*
from t where
object_id > :x )
Plan hash value: 1399240396
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation | Name | Rows | Bytes | Cost (%CPU)| Time |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 0 | SELECT STATEMENT | | | | 18 (100)| |
| 1 | SORT AGGREGATE | | 1 | 13 | | |
| 2 | VIEW | | 13 | 169 | 18 (6)| 00:00:01 |
| 3 | WINDOW SORT | | 13 | 507 | 18 (6)| 00:00:01 |
| 4 | TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID| T | 13 | 507 | 17 (0)| 00:00:01 |
|* 5 | INDEX RANGE SCAN | I | 13 | | 3 (0)| 00:00:01 |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peeked Binds (identified by position):
--------------------------------------
1 - :X (NUMBER): 100000
Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
5 - access("OBJECT_ID">:X)
31 rows selected.
Elapsed: 00:00:01.35
SQL>
SQL> set pagesize 9999
SQL>
SQL> -- dynamic SQL with literals
SQL> alter system flush buffer_cache;
System altered.
Elapsed: 00:00:00.05
SQL>
SQL> alter system flush shared_pool;
System altered.
Elapsed: 00:00:00.66
SQL>
SQL> declare
2 x integer;
3 n_dummy number;
4 begin
5 for i in 1..10 loop
6 if i = 1 then
7 x := 100000;
8 else
9 x := 1;
10 end if;
11 execute immediate '
12 select
13 sum(row_num)
14 from
15 (
16 select
17 row_number() over (partition by object_type order by object_name) as row_num
18 , t.*
19 from
20 t
21 where
22 object_id > ' || x || '
23 )' into n_dummy;
24 if i = 1 then
25 select
26 prev_sql_id
27 into
28 :sql_id
29 from
30 v$session
31 where
32 sid = sys_context('userenv', 'sid');
33 end if;
34 end loop;
35 end;
36 /
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
Elapsed: 00:00:52.29
SQL>
SQL> select
2 b.sql_id
3 , b.child_number
4 , b.executions
5 , b.parse_calls
6 , b.buffer_gets
7 , b.is_bind_sensitive
8 , b.is_bind_aware
9 from
10 v$sql a, v$sql b
11 where
12 a.force_matching_signature = b.force_matching_signature
13 and a.sql_id = :sql_id;
SQL_ID CHILD_NUMBER EXECUTIONS PARSE_CALLS BUFFER_GETS I I
------------- ------------ ---------- ----------- ----------- - -
2tgumwrfx40bu 0 1 1 53 N N
03zrk5tr7zsn4 0 9 1 193851 N N
Elapsed: 00:00:00.10
SQL>
SQL> set pagesize 0
SQL>
SQL> select
2 c.*
3 from
4 v$sql a
5 , v$sql b
6 , table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor(b.sql_id)) c
7 where
8 a.force_matching_signature = b.force_matching_signature
9 and a.sql_id = :sql_id;
SQL_ID 2tgumwrfx40bu, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select sum(row_num) from (
select row_number() over (partition by object_type
order by object_name) as row_num , t.*
from t where
object_id > 100000 )
Plan hash value: 1399240396
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation | Name | Rows | Bytes | Cost (%CPU)| Time |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 0 | SELECT STATEMENT | | | | 18 (100)| |
| 1 | SORT AGGREGATE | | 1 | 15 | | |
| 2 | VIEW | | 13 | 195 | 18 (6)| 00:00:01 |
| 3 | WINDOW SORT | | 13 | 507 | 18 (6)| 00:00:01 |
| 4 | TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID| T | 13 | 507 | 17 (0)| 00:00:01 |
|* 5 | INDEX RANGE SCAN | I | 13 | | 3 (0)| 00:00:01 |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
5 - access("OBJECT_ID">100000)
SQL_ID 03zrk5tr7zsn4, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select sum(row_num) from (
select row_number() over (partition by object_type
order by object_name) as row_num , t.*
from t where
object_id > 1 )
Plan hash value: 2719131525
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation | Name | Rows | Bytes |TempSpc| Cost (%CPU)| Time |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 0 | SELECT STATEMENT | | | | | 20588 (100)| |
| 1 | SORT AGGREGATE | | 1 | 15 | | | |
| 2 | VIEW | | 1457K| 20M| | 20588 (1)| 00:04:08 |
| 3 | WINDOW SORT | | 1457K| 54M| 72M| 20588 (1)| 00:04:08 |
|* 4 | TABLE ACCESS FULL| T | 1457K| 54M| | 5894 (2)| 00:01:11 |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
4 - filter("OBJECT_ID">1)
51 rows selected.
Elapsed: 00:00:01.24
SQL>
SQL> set pagesize 9999
SQL>
SQL> -- dynamic SQL with binds + OPEN
SQL> alter system flush buffer_cache;
System altered.
Elapsed: 00:00:00.04
SQL>
SQL> alter system flush shared_pool;
System altered.
Elapsed: 00:00:00.66
SQL>
SQL> declare
2 x integer;
3 n_dummy number;
4 c sys_refcursor;
5 begin
6 for i in 1..10 loop
7 if i = 1 then
8 x := 100000;
9 else
10 x := 1;
11 end if;
12 open c for '
13 select
14 sum(row_num)
15 from
16 (
17 select
18 row_number() over (partition by object_type order by object_name) as row_num
19 , t.*
20 from
21 t
22 where
23 object_id > :x
24 )' using x;
25 fetch c into n_dummy;
26 close c;
27 if i = 1 then
28 select
29 prev_sql_id
30 into
31 :sql_id
32 from
33 v$session
34 where
35 sid = sys_context('userenv', 'sid');
36 end if;
37 end loop;
38 end;
39 /
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
Elapsed: 00:01:12.12
SQL>
SQL> select
2 sql_id
3 , child_number
4 , executions
5 , parse_calls
6 , buffer_gets
7 , is_bind_sensitive
8 , is_bind_aware
9 from
10 v$sql
11 where
12 sql_id = :sql_id;
SQL_ID CHILD_NUMBER EXECUTIONS PARSE_CALLS BUFFER_GETS I I
------------- ------------ ---------- ----------- ----------- - -
3snga4x0swy99 0 2 3 1460762 Y N
3snga4x0swy99 1 8 7 172312 Y Y
Elapsed: 00:00:00.16
SQL>
SQL> set pagesize 0
SQL>
SQL> select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor(:sql_id,null,'+PEEKED_BINDS'));
SQL_ID 3snga4x0swy99, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select sum(row_num) from (
select row_number() over (partition by object_type
order by object_name) as row_num , t.*
from t where
object_id > :x )
Plan hash value: 1399240396
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation | Name | Rows | Bytes | Cost (%CPU)| Time |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 0 | SELECT STATEMENT | | | | 18 (100)| |
| 1 | SORT AGGREGATE | | 1 | 13 | | |
| 2 | VIEW | | 13 | 169 | 18 (6)| 00:00:01 |
| 3 | WINDOW SORT | | 13 | 507 | 18 (6)| 00:00:01 |
| 4 | TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID| T | 13 | 507 | 17 (0)| 00:00:01 |
|* 5 | INDEX RANGE SCAN | I | 13 | | 3 (0)| 00:00:01 |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peeked Binds (identified by position):
--------------------------------------
1 - :X (NUMBER): 100000
Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
5 - access("OBJECT_ID">:X)
SQL_ID 3snga4x0swy99, child number 1
-------------------------------------
select sum(row_num) from (
select row_number() over (partition by object_type
order by object_name) as row_num , t.*
from t where
object_id > :x )
Plan hash value: 2719131525
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation | Name | Rows | Bytes |TempSpc| Cost (%CPU)| Time |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 0 | SELECT STATEMENT | | | | | 20588 (100)| |
| 1 | SORT AGGREGATE | | 1 | 13 | | | |
| 2 | VIEW | | 1457K| 18M| | 20588 (1)| 00:04:08 |
| 3 | WINDOW SORT | | 1457K| 54M| 72M| 20588 (1)| 00:04:08 |
|* 4 | TABLE ACCESS FULL| T | 1457K| 54M| | 5894 (2)| 00:01:11 |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peeked Binds (identified by position):
--------------------------------------
1 - :X (NUMBER): 1
Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
4 - filter("OBJECT_ID">:X)
61 rows selected.
Elapsed: 00:00:01.36
SQL>
SQL> set pagesize 9999
SQL>
So this script shows some interesting results:
1. It can be seen that ACS does not seem to work with several of the used variations: Both the static and the dynamic SQL using EXECUTE IMMEDIATE and binds do not create a second child cursor and re-use the same execution plan for all ten executions. Although the cursor has been marked as BIND_SENSITIVE, it has not been marked as BIND_AWARE.
Both execution variants also share the fact that there seems to be a PL/SQL optimization in place that allows to keep the cursors open - there is only a single PARSE call recorded in V$SQL for this SQL statement, although we loop through the same code ten times and therefore should in principle see as many parse as execution calls.
You would even see the same optimization in place when explicit cursors were used with explicit OPEN / FETCH / CLOSE calls: Albeit the explicit CLOSE you would still see only a single PARSE call for the statement - PL/SQL holds the cursor open for maximum performance and scalibility.
2. Another interesting side note is that the new feature "Cardinality Feedback" that has been introduced with Oracle 11.2 seems also to be not working in these examples, but this is definitely something for another post.
"Cardinality Feedback" allows Oracle to compare the cardinality estimates of the cost-based optimizer with the actual cardinalities at execution time and perform "instant tuning" by automatically adding OPT_ESTIMATE and other hints to the statement to correct the cardinality estimates and do a re-optimization of the "tuned" statement. Again this information only resides in the Shared Pool and will be potentially aged out like the ACS information.
3. The clear winner in terms of both elapsed and performed logical I/O is the third variant that creates two different cursors using literals. For both cursors the optimal execution plan has been found and nothing had to go "wrong" first to be fixed afterwards, therefore the total elapsed time and number of buffer gets is significantly lower than in the other cases. This gives us already a hint regarding the point "How can we help the database in such cases?"
Note also that although the number of buffer gets is significantly lower compared to the other cases, the elapsed time is not that much different, which is another example that buffer gets are not necessarily a good indicator for the overall work performed. In this particular case a lot of time is spent on writing and reading from the temporary tablespace for the WINDOW SORT operation, and since this operation has more or less to do the same work in all cases where the whole table needs to read in whatever efficient or inefficient way, the overall runtime does not differ as dramatically as the number of buffer gets. You could see this additional work in this example by checking the columns DISK_READS and DIRECT_WRITES from V$SQL and of course by checking the ASH / extended SQL trace profile.
4. The fourth variant using the dynamic SQL with OPEN obviously does not benefit from the PL/SQL optimization: V$SQL clearly shows that there have been as many PARSE calls as EXECUTE calls. Interestingly in this case ACS worked and created a second child cursor. This gives us already a hint what seems to prevent ACS from working.
The shown behaviour of ACS not working is officially documented in My Oracle Support, however not available in the Knowledge Base but only as bug number 8357294: ADAPTIVE CURSOR SHARING DOESN'T WORK FOR SQL FROM PL/SQL. It is interesting to note that the very detailed bug description does not mention a fix release or patch, but does mention that setting "session_cached_cursors" to 0 allows ACS again to work.
And indeed, when running the same script again with "session_cached_cursors" set to 0, I get this result:
SQL>
SQL> drop table t;
Table dropped.
SQL> purge table t;
Table purged.
SQL> create table t as select * from dba_objects, (select rownum from dual connect by level <= 20);
Table created.
SQL> create index i on t(object_id);
Index created.
SQL>
SQL> exec dbms_stats.gather_table_stats(user, 'T', method_opt => 'for all columns size 1')
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
SQL>
SQL> set echo on
SQL>
SQL> select count(*), min(object_id)
2 , max(object_id) from t;
COUNT(*) MIN(OBJECT_ID) MAX(OBJECT_ID)
---------- -------------- --------------
1457480 2 75821
SQL>
SQL> set echo on linesize 200 heading on tab off serveroutput off
SQL>
SQL> set timing on
SQL>
SQL> -- This is a workaround that disables also the cursor optimizations in PL/SQL
SQL> -- In particular the PL/SQL hold cursor open optimization
SQL> -- Therefore the cursor gets reparsed and ACS kicks in
SQL> alter session set session_cached_cursors = 0;
Session altered.
Elapsed: 00:00:00.00
SQL> --
SQL> -- Does this make any difference? No
SQL> -- alter session set plsql_optimize_level = 0;
SQL>
SQL> variable sql_id varchar2(255)
SQL>
SQL> -- Static SQL
SQL> alter system flush buffer_cache;
System altered.
Elapsed: 00:00:00.05
SQL>
SQL> alter system flush shared_pool;
System altered.
Elapsed: 00:00:00.71
SQL>
SQL> declare
2 x integer;
3 n_dummy number;
4 begin
5 for i in 1..10 loop
6 if i = 1 then
7 x := 100000;
8 else
9 x := 1;
10 end if;
11 select
12 sum(row_num)
13 into
14 n_dummy
15 from
16 (
17 select
18 row_number() over (partition by object_type order by object_name) as row_num
19 , t.*
20 from
21 t
22 where
23 object_id > x
24 );
25 if i = 1 then
26 select
27 prev_sql_id
28 into
29 :sql_id
30 from
31 v$session
32 where
33 sid = sys_context('userenv', 'sid');
34 end if;
35 end loop;
36 end;
37 /
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
Elapsed: 00:01:00.82
SQL>
SQL> select
2 sql_id
3 , child_number
4 , executions
5 , parse_calls
6 , buffer_gets
7 , is_bind_sensitive
8 , is_bind_aware
9 from
10 v$sql
11 where
12 sql_id = :sql_id;
SQL_ID CHILD_NUMBER EXECUTIONS PARSE_CALLS BUFFER_GETS I I
------------- ------------ ---------- ----------- ----------- - -
g89tq3q521rbg 0 2 3 1460742 Y N
g89tq3q521rbg 1 8 7 172312 Y Y
Elapsed: 00:00:00.16
SQL>
SQL> set pagesize 0
SQL>
SQL> select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor(:sql_id,null,'+PEEKED_BINDS'));
SQL_ID g89tq3q521rbg, child number 0
-------------------------------------
SELECT SUM(ROW_NUM) FROM ( SELECT ROW_NUMBER() OVER (PARTITION BY
OBJECT_TYPE ORDER BY OBJECT_NAME) AS ROW_NUM , T.* FROM T WHERE
OBJECT_ID > :B1 )
Plan hash value: 1399240396
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation | Name | Rows | Bytes | Cost (%CPU)| Time |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 0 | SELECT STATEMENT | | | | 18 (100)| |
| 1 | SORT AGGREGATE | | 1 | 13 | | |
| 2 | VIEW | | 13 | 169 | 18 (6)| 00:00:01 |
| 3 | WINDOW SORT | | 13 | 507 | 18 (6)| 00:00:01 |
| 4 | TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID| T | 13 | 507 | 17 (0)| 00:00:01 |
|* 5 | INDEX RANGE SCAN | I | 13 | | 3 (0)| 00:00:01 |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peeked Binds (identified by position):
--------------------------------------
1 - :B1 (NUMBER): 100000
Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
5 - access("OBJECT_ID">:B1)
SQL_ID g89tq3q521rbg, child number 1
-------------------------------------
SELECT SUM(ROW_NUM) FROM ( SELECT ROW_NUMBER() OVER (PARTITION BY
OBJECT_TYPE ORDER BY OBJECT_NAME) AS ROW_NUM , T.* FROM T WHERE
OBJECT_ID > :B1 )
Plan hash value: 2719131525
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation | Name | Rows | Bytes |TempSpc| Cost (%CPU)| Time |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 0 | SELECT STATEMENT | | | | | 20588 (100)| |
| 1 | SORT AGGREGATE | | 1 | 13 | | | |
| 2 | VIEW | | 1457K| 18M| | 20588 (1)| 00:04:08 |
| 3 | WINDOW SORT | | 1457K| 54M| 72M| 20588 (1)| 00:04:08 |
|* 4 | TABLE ACCESS FULL| T | 1457K| 54M| | 5894 (2)| 00:01:11 |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peeked Binds (identified by position):
--------------------------------------
1 - :B1 (NUMBER): 1
Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
4 - filter("OBJECT_ID">:B1)
57 rows selected.
Elapsed: 00:00:01.50
SQL>
SQL> set pagesize 9999
SQL>
SQL> -- dynamic SQL with binds
SQL> alter system flush buffer_cache;
System altered.
Elapsed: 00:00:00.07
SQL>
SQL> alter system flush shared_pool;
System altered.
Elapsed: 00:00:00.70
SQL>
SQL> declare
2 x integer;
3 n_dummy number;
4 begin
5 for i in 1..10 loop
6 if i = 1 then
7 x := 100000;
8 else
9 x := 1;
10 end if;
11 execute immediate '
12 select
13 sum(row_num)
14 from
15 (
16 select
17 row_number() over (partition by object_type order by object_name) as row_num
18 , t.*
19 from
20 t
21 where
22 object_id > :x
23 )' into n_dummy using x;
24 if i = 1 then
25 select
26 prev_sql_id
27 into
28 :sql_id
29 from
30 v$session
31 where
32 sid = sys_context('userenv', 'sid');
33 end if;
34 end loop;
35 end;
36 /
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
Elapsed: 00:01:12.41
SQL>
SQL> select
2 sql_id
3 , child_number
4 , executions
5 , parse_calls
6 , buffer_gets
7 , is_bind_sensitive
8 , is_bind_aware
9 from
10 v$sql
11 where
12 sql_id = :sql_id;
SQL_ID CHILD_NUMBER EXECUTIONS PARSE_CALLS BUFFER_GETS I I
------------- ------------ ---------- ----------- ----------- - -
3snga4x0swy99 0 2 3 1460762 Y N
3snga4x0swy99 1 8 7 172312 Y Y
Elapsed: 00:00:00.13
SQL>
SQL> set pagesize 0
SQL>
SQL> select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor(:sql_id,null,'+PEEKED_BINDS'));
SQL_ID 3snga4x0swy99, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select sum(row_num) from (
select row_number() over (partition by object_type
order by object_name) as row_num , t.*
from t where
object_id > :x )
Plan hash value: 1399240396
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation | Name | Rows | Bytes | Cost (%CPU)| Time |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 0 | SELECT STATEMENT | | | | 18 (100)| |
| 1 | SORT AGGREGATE | | 1 | 13 | | |
| 2 | VIEW | | 13 | 169 | 18 (6)| 00:00:01 |
| 3 | WINDOW SORT | | 13 | 507 | 18 (6)| 00:00:01 |
| 4 | TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID| T | 13 | 507 | 17 (0)| 00:00:01 |
|* 5 | INDEX RANGE SCAN | I | 13 | | 3 (0)| 00:00:01 |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peeked Binds (identified by position):
--------------------------------------
1 - :X (NUMBER): 100000
Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
5 - access("OBJECT_ID">:X)
SQL_ID 3snga4x0swy99, child number 1
-------------------------------------
select sum(row_num) from (
select row_number() over (partition by object_type
order by object_name) as row_num , t.*
from t where
object_id > :x )
Plan hash value: 2719131525
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation | Name | Rows | Bytes |TempSpc| Cost (%CPU)| Time |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 0 | SELECT STATEMENT | | | | | 20588 (100)| |
| 1 | SORT AGGREGATE | | 1 | 13 | | | |
| 2 | VIEW | | 1457K| 18M| | 20588 (1)| 00:04:08 |
| 3 | WINDOW SORT | | 1457K| 54M| 72M| 20588 (1)| 00:04:08 |
|* 4 | TABLE ACCESS FULL| T | 1457K| 54M| | 5894 (2)| 00:01:11 |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peeked Binds (identified by position):
--------------------------------------
1 - :X (NUMBER): 1
Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
4 - filter("OBJECT_ID">:X)
61 rows selected.
Elapsed: 00:00:01.10
SQL>
SQL> set pagesize 9999
SQL>
SQL> -- dynamic SQL with literals
SQL> alter system flush buffer_cache;
System altered.
Elapsed: 00:00:00.03
SQL>
SQL> alter system flush shared_pool;
System altered.
Elapsed: 00:00:00.69
SQL>
SQL> declare
2 x integer;
3 n_dummy number;
4 begin
5 for i in 1..10 loop
6 if i = 1 then
7 x := 100000;
8 else
9 x := 1;
10 end if;
11 execute immediate '
12 select
13 sum(row_num)
14 from
15 (
16 select
17 row_number() over (partition by object_type order by object_name) as row_num
18 , t.*
19 from
20 t
21 where
22 object_id > ' || x || '
23 )' into n_dummy;
24 if i = 1 then
25 select
26 prev_sql_id
27 into
28 :sql_id
29 from
30 v$session
31 where
32 sid = sys_context('userenv', 'sid');
33 end if;
34 end loop;
35 end;
36 /
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
Elapsed: 00:00:55.97
SQL>
SQL> select
2 b.sql_id
3 , b.child_number
4 , b.executions
5 , b.parse_calls
6 , b.buffer_gets
7 , b.is_bind_sensitive
8 , b.is_bind_aware
9 from
10 v$sql a, v$sql b
11 where
12 a.force_matching_signature = b.force_matching_signature
13 and a.sql_id = :sql_id;
SQL_ID CHILD_NUMBER EXECUTIONS PARSE_CALLS BUFFER_GETS I I
------------- ------------ ---------- ----------- ----------- - -
2tgumwrfx40bu 0 1 1 53 N N
03zrk5tr7zsn4 0 9 9 193851 N N
Elapsed: 00:00:00.11
SQL>
SQL> set pagesize 0
SQL>
SQL> select
2 c.*
3 from
4 v$sql a
5 , v$sql b
6 , table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor(b.sql_id)) c
7 where
8 a.force_matching_signature = b.force_matching_signature
9 and a.sql_id = :sql_id;
SQL_ID 2tgumwrfx40bu, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select sum(row_num) from (
select row_number() over (partition by object_type
order by object_name) as row_num , t.*
from t where
object_id > 100000 )
Plan hash value: 1399240396
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation | Name | Rows | Bytes | Cost (%CPU)| Time |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 0 | SELECT STATEMENT | | | | 18 (100)| |
| 1 | SORT AGGREGATE | | 1 | 15 | | |
| 2 | VIEW | | 13 | 195 | 18 (6)| 00:00:01 |
| 3 | WINDOW SORT | | 13 | 507 | 18 (6)| 00:00:01 |
| 4 | TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID| T | 13 | 507 | 17 (0)| 00:00:01 |
|* 5 | INDEX RANGE SCAN | I | 13 | | 3 (0)| 00:00:01 |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
5 - access("OBJECT_ID">100000)
SQL_ID 03zrk5tr7zsn4, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select sum(row_num) from (
select row_number() over (partition by object_type
order by object_name) as row_num , t.*
from t where
object_id > 1 )
Plan hash value: 2719131525
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation | Name | Rows | Bytes |TempSpc| Cost (%CPU)| Time |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 0 | SELECT STATEMENT | | | | | 20588 (100)| |
| 1 | SORT AGGREGATE | | 1 | 15 | | | |
| 2 | VIEW | | 1457K| 20M| | 20588 (1)| 00:04:08 |
| 3 | WINDOW SORT | | 1457K| 54M| 72M| 20588 (1)| 00:04:08 |
|* 4 | TABLE ACCESS FULL| T | 1457K| 54M| | 5894 (2)| 00:01:11 |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
4 - filter("OBJECT_ID">1)
51 rows selected.
Elapsed: 00:00:01.17
SQL>
SQL> set pagesize 9999
SQL>
SQL> -- dynamic SQL with binds + OPEN
SQL> alter system flush buffer_cache;
System altered.
Elapsed: 00:00:00.04
SQL>
SQL> alter system flush shared_pool;
System altered.
Elapsed: 00:00:00.73
SQL>
SQL> declare
2 x integer;
3 n_dummy number;
4 c sys_refcursor;
5 begin
6 for i in 1..10 loop
7 if i = 1 then
8 x := 100000;
9 else
10 x := 1;
11 end if;
12 open c for '
13 select
14 sum(row_num)
15 from
16 (
17 select
18 row_number() over (partition by object_type order by object_name) as row_num
19 , t.*
20 from
21 t
22 where
23 object_id > :x
24 )' using x;
25 fetch c into n_dummy;
26 close c;
27 if i = 1 then
28 select
29 prev_sql_id
30 into
31 :sql_id
32 from
33 v$session
34 where
35 sid = sys_context('userenv', 'sid');
36 end if;
37 end loop;
38 end;
39 /
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
Elapsed: 00:01:05.62
SQL>
SQL> select
2 sql_id
3 , child_number
4 , executions
5 , parse_calls
6 , buffer_gets
7 , is_bind_sensitive
8 , is_bind_aware
9 from
10 v$sql
11 where
12 sql_id = :sql_id;
SQL_ID CHILD_NUMBER EXECUTIONS PARSE_CALLS BUFFER_GETS I I
------------- ------------ ---------- ----------- ----------- - -
3snga4x0swy99 0 2 3 1460762 Y N
3snga4x0swy99 1 8 7 172312 Y Y
Elapsed: 00:00:00.16
SQL>
SQL> set pagesize 0
SQL>
SQL> select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor(:sql_id,null,'+PEEKED_BINDS'));
SQL_ID 3snga4x0swy99, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select sum(row_num) from (
select row_number() over (partition by object_type
order by object_name) as row_num , t.*
from t where
object_id > :x )
Plan hash value: 1399240396
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation | Name | Rows | Bytes | Cost (%CPU)| Time |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 0 | SELECT STATEMENT | | | | 18 (100)| |
| 1 | SORT AGGREGATE | | 1 | 13 | | |
| 2 | VIEW | | 13 | 169 | 18 (6)| 00:00:01 |
| 3 | WINDOW SORT | | 13 | 507 | 18 (6)| 00:00:01 |
| 4 | TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID| T | 13 | 507 | 17 (0)| 00:00:01 |
|* 5 | INDEX RANGE SCAN | I | 13 | | 3 (0)| 00:00:01 |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peeked Binds (identified by position):
--------------------------------------
1 - :X (NUMBER): 100000
Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
5 - access("OBJECT_ID">:X)
SQL_ID 3snga4x0swy99, child number 1
-------------------------------------
select sum(row_num) from (
select row_number() over (partition by object_type
order by object_name) as row_num , t.*
from t where
object_id > :x )
Plan hash value: 2719131525
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation | Name | Rows | Bytes |TempSpc| Cost (%CPU)| Time |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 0 | SELECT STATEMENT | | | | | 20588 (100)| |
| 1 | SORT AGGREGATE | | 1 | 13 | | | |
| 2 | VIEW | | 1457K| 18M| | 20588 (1)| 00:04:08 |
| 3 | WINDOW SORT | | 1457K| 54M| 72M| 20588 (1)| 00:04:08 |
|* 4 | TABLE ACCESS FULL| T | 1457K| 54M| | 5894 (2)| 00:01:11 |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peeked Binds (identified by position):
--------------------------------------
1 - :X (NUMBER): 1
Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
4 - filter("OBJECT_ID">:X)
61 rows selected.
Elapsed: 00:00:01.57
SQL>
SQL> set pagesize 9999
SQL>
Now in all cases where the cursor is potentially shared we can see that ACS eventually kicks in and creates a second child cursor. Notice however that this comes at a price: All cases show now that there are as many PARSE calls as executions.
So this seems to mean that disabling the session cursor cache actually disabled also the PL/SQL optimization that prevents the repeated PARSE calls by keeping the cursors open.
Remember that the session cursor cache is merely a means to make a soft PARSE call even _softer_ by avoiding the otherwise required access to the Shared Pool library cache resources because the cursor information has been cached in a private memory area of the process, but the session cursor cache does not avoid the PARSE call itself - this can only be done on application resp. client side, not on database side.
In order to understand if the session cursor cache or the "keep cursors open" optimization affects ACS we can run the following simple script:
set echo on define on tab off
drop table t;
purge table t;
create table t as select * from dba_objects, (select rownum from dual connect by level <= 20);
create index i on t(object_id);
exec dbms_stats.gather_table_stats(user, 'T', method_opt => 'for all columns size 1')
set echo on
select count(*), min(object_id)
, max(object_id) from t;
set echo on linesize 200 heading off newpage none tab off serveroutput off
alter session set statistics_level = all;
-- alter session set session_cached_cursors = 0;
alter system flush buffer_cache;
alter system flush shared_pool;
var x number
exec :x := 100000
-- pause
set timing on
select
sum(row_num)
from
(
select
row_number() over (partition by object_type order by object_name) as row_num
, t.*
from
t
where
object_id > :x
);
column prev_sql_id new_value sql_id noprint
column sid new_value session_id noprint
select
prev_sql_id
, sid
from
v$session
where
sid = sys_context('userenv', 'sid');
select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor('&sql_id',null,'ALLSTATS LAST'));
exec :x := 100000
column value new_value value_1
select
name
, value
from
v$statname a
, v$sesstat b
where
a.statistic# = b.statistic#
and a.name = 'session cursor cache hits'
and b.sid = sys_context('userenv', 'sid');
select
sum(row_num)
from
(
select
row_number() over (partition by object_type order by object_name) as row_num
, t.*
from
t
where
object_id > :x
);
select
name
, value - &value_1 as diff
from
v$statname a
, v$sesstat b
where
a.statistic# = b.statistic#
and a.name = 'session cursor cache hits'
and b.sid = sys_context('userenv', 'sid');
select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor('&sql_id',null,'ALLSTATS LAST'));
exec :x := 100000
select
name
, value
from
v$statname a
, v$sesstat b
where
a.statistic# = b.statistic#
and a.name = 'session cursor cache hits'
and b.sid = sys_context('userenv', 'sid');
select
sum(row_num)
from
(
select
row_number() over (partition by object_type order by object_name) as row_num
, t.*
from
t
where
object_id > :x
);
select
name
, value - &value_1 as diff
from
v$statname a
, v$sesstat b
where
a.statistic# = b.statistic#
and a.name = 'session cursor cache hits'
and b.sid = sys_context('userenv', 'sid');
select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor('&sql_id',null,'ALLSTATS LAST'));
exec :x := 100000
select
name
, value
from
v$statname a
, v$sesstat b
where
a.statistic# = b.statistic#
and a.name = 'session cursor cache hits'
and b.sid = sys_context('userenv', 'sid');
select
sum(row_num)
from
(
select
row_number() over (partition by object_type order by object_name) as row_num
, t.*
from
t
where
object_id > :x
);
select
name
, value - &value_1 as diff
from
v$statname a
, v$sesstat b
where
a.statistic# = b.statistic#
and a.name = 'session cursor cache hits'
and b.sid = sys_context('userenv', 'sid');
select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor('&sql_id',null,'ALLSTATS LAST'));
exec :x := 100000
select
name
, value
from
v$statname a
, v$sesstat b
where
a.statistic# = b.statistic#
and a.name = 'session cursor cache hits'
and b.sid = sys_context('userenv', 'sid');
select
sum(row_num)
from
(
select
row_number() over (partition by object_type order by object_name) as row_num
, t.*
from
t
where
object_id > :x
);
select
name
, value - &value_1 as diff
from
v$statname a
, v$sesstat b
where
a.statistic# = b.statistic#
and a.name = 'session cursor cache hits'
and b.sid = sys_context('userenv', 'sid');
select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor('&sql_id',null,'ALLSTATS LAST'));
exec :x := 1
select
name
, value
from
v$statname a
, v$sesstat b
where
a.statistic# = b.statistic#
and a.name = 'session cursor cache hits'
and b.sid = sys_context('userenv', 'sid');
select
sum(row_num)
from
(
select
row_number() over (partition by object_type order by object_name) as row_num
, t.*
from
t
where
object_id > :x
);
select
name
, value - &value_1 as diff
from
v$statname a
, v$sesstat b
where
a.statistic# = b.statistic#
and a.name = 'session cursor cache hits'
and b.sid = sys_context('userenv', 'sid');
select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor('&sql_id',null,'ALLSTATS LAST'));
exec :x := 1
select
name
, value
from
v$statname a
, v$sesstat b
where
a.statistic# = b.statistic#
and a.name = 'session cursor cache hits'
and b.sid = sys_context('userenv', 'sid');
select
sum(row_num)
from
(
select
row_number() over (partition by object_type order by object_name) as row_num
, t.*
from
t
where
object_id > :x
);
select
name
, value - &value_1 as diff
from
v$statname a
, v$sesstat b
where
a.statistic# = b.statistic#
and a.name = 'session cursor cache hits'
and b.sid = sys_context('userenv', 'sid');
select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor('&sql_id',null,'ALLSTATS LAST'));
exec :x := 1
select
name
, value
from
v$statname a
, v$sesstat b
where
a.statistic# = b.statistic#
and a.name = 'session cursor cache hits'
and b.sid = sys_context('userenv', 'sid');
select
sum(row_num)
from
(
select
row_number() over (partition by object_type order by object_name) as row_num
, t.*
from
t
where
object_id > :x
);
select
name
, value - &value_1 as diff
from
v$statname a
, v$sesstat b
where
a.statistic# = b.statistic#
and a.name = 'session cursor cache hits'
and b.sid = sys_context('userenv', 'sid');
select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor('&sql_id',null,'ALLSTATS LAST'));
set heading on
select
sql_id
, child_number
, executions
, parse_calls
, buffer_gets
, is_bind_sensitive
, is_bind_aware
from
v$sql
where
sql_id = '&sql_id';
This script simply runs the same SQL that we already know sufficiently often to ensure that it gets cached in the session cursor cache by executing it at least three times. Then in one of the next executions the "bad" bind values is used to see if the caching in the session cursor cache somehow prevents ACS from kicking in. Here is the result, this time from 11.1.0.7 (but again I got the same from 11.2.0.2):
SQL>
SQL> drop table t;
Table dropped.
SQL> purge table t;
Table purged.
SQL> create table t as select * from dba_objects, (select rownum from dual connect by level <= 20);
Table created.
SQL> create index i on t(object_id);
Index created.
SQL>
SQL> exec dbms_stats.gather_table_stats(user, 'T', method_opt => 'for all columns size 1')
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
SQL>
SQL> set echo on
SQL>
SQL> select count(*), min(object_id)
2 , max(object_id) from t;
COUNT(*) MIN(OBJECT_ID) MAX(OBJECT_ID)
---------- -------------- --------------
1385560 2 71521
SQL>
SQL> set echo on linesize 200 heading off newpage none tab off serveroutput off
SQL>
SQL> alter session set statistics_level = all;
Session altered.
SQL>
SQL> -- alter session set session_cached_cursors = 0;
SQL>
SQL> alter system flush buffer_cache;
System altered.
SQL>
SQL> alter system flush shared_pool;
System altered.
SQL>
SQL> var x number
SQL>
SQL> exec :x := 100000
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
SQL>
SQL> -- pause
SQL>
SQL> set timing on
SQL>
SQL> select
2 sum(row_num)
3 from
4 (
5 select
6 row_number() over (partition by object_type order by object_name) as row_num
7 , t.*
8 from
9 t
10 where
11 object_id > :x
12 );
Elapsed: 00:00:00.01
SQL>
SQL> column prev_sql_id new_value sql_id noprint
SQL> column sid new_value session_id noprint
SQL>
SQL> select
2 prev_sql_id
3 , sid
4 from
5 v$session
6 where
7 sid = sys_context('userenv', 'sid');
Elapsed: 00:00:00.06
SQL>
SQL> select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor('&sql_id',null,'ALLSTATS LAST'));
old 1: select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor('&sql_id',null,'ALLSTATS LAST'))
new 1: select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor('fmbq5ytmh0hng',null,'ALLSTATS LAST'))
SQL_ID fmbq5ytmh0hng, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select sum(row_num) from ( select
row_number() over (partition by object_type order by object_name) as
row_num , t.* from t
where object_id > :x )
Plan hash value: 1399240396
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation | Name | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows | A-Time | Buffers | Reads | OMem | 1Mem | Used-Mem |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 0 | SELECT STATEMENT | | 1 | | 1 |00:00:00.01 | 3 | 3 | | | |
| 1 | SORT AGGREGATE | | 1 | 1 | 1 |00:00:00.01 | 3 | 3 | | | |
| 2 | VIEW | | 1 | 12 | 0 |00:00:00.01 | 3 | 3 | | | |
| 3 | WINDOW SORT | | 1 | 12 | 0 |00:00:00.01 | 3 | 3 | 1024 | 1024 | |
| 4 | TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID| T | 1 | 12 | 0 |00:00:00.01 | 3 | 3 | | | |
|* 5 | INDEX RANGE SCAN | I | 1 | 12 | 0 |00:00:00.01 | 3 | 3 | | | |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
5 - access("OBJECT_ID">:X)
25 rows selected.
Elapsed: 00:00:00.46
SQL>
SQL> exec :x := 100000
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
Elapsed: 00:00:00.00
SQL>
SQL> column value new_value value_1
SQL>
SQL> select
2 name
3 , value
4 from
5 v$statname a
6 , v$sesstat b
7 where
8 a.statistic# = b.statistic#
9 and a.name = 'session cursor cache hits'
10 and b.sid = sys_context('userenv', 'sid');
session cursor cache hits 5058
Elapsed: 00:00:00.01
SQL>
SQL> select
2 sum(row_num)
3 from
4 (
5 select
6 row_number() over (partition by object_type order by object_name) as row_num
7 , t.*
8 from
9 t
10 where
11 object_id > :x
12 );
Elapsed: 00:00:00.01
SQL>
SQL> select
2 name
3 , value - &value_1 as diff
4 from
5 v$statname a
6 , v$sesstat b
7 where
8 a.statistic# = b.statistic#
9 and a.name = 'session cursor cache hits'
10 and b.sid = sys_context('userenv', 'sid');
old 3: , value - &value_1 as diff
new 3: , value - 5058 as diff
session cursor cache hits 2
Elapsed: 00:00:00.00
SQL>
SQL> select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor('&sql_id',null,'ALLSTATS LAST'));
old 1: select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor('&sql_id',null,'ALLSTATS LAST'))
new 1: select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor('fmbq5ytmh0hng',null,'ALLSTATS LAST'))
SQL_ID fmbq5ytmh0hng, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select sum(row_num) from ( select
row_number() over (partition by object_type order by object_name) as
row_num , t.* from t
where object_id > :x )
Plan hash value: 1399240396
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation | Name | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows | A-Time | Buffers | OMem | 1Mem | Used-Mem |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 0 | SELECT STATEMENT | | 1 | | 1 |00:00:00.01 | 3 | | | |
| 1 | SORT AGGREGATE | | 1 | 1 | 1 |00:00:00.01 | 3 | | | |
| 2 | VIEW | | 1 | 12 | 0 |00:00:00.01 | 3 | | | |
| 3 | WINDOW SORT | | 1 | 12 | 0 |00:00:00.01 | 3 | 1024 | 1024 | |
| 4 | TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID| T | 1 | 12 | 0 |00:00:00.01 | 3 | | | |
|* 5 | INDEX RANGE SCAN | I | 1 | 12 | 0 |00:00:00.01 | 3 | | | |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
5 - access("OBJECT_ID">:X)
25 rows selected.
Elapsed: 00:00:00.10
SQL>
SQL> exec :x := 100000
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
Elapsed: 00:00:00.00
SQL>
SQL> select
2 name
3 , value
4 from
5 v$statname a
6 , v$sesstat b
7 where
8 a.statistic# = b.statistic#
9 and a.name = 'session cursor cache hits'
10 and b.sid = sys_context('userenv', 'sid');
session cursor cache hits 5063
Elapsed: 00:00:00.00
SQL>
SQL> select
2 sum(row_num)
3 from
4 (
5 select
6 row_number() over (partition by object_type order by object_name) as row_num
7 , t.*
8 from
9 t
10 where
11 object_id > :x
12 );
Elapsed: 00:00:00.01
SQL>
SQL> select
2 name
3 , value - &value_1 as diff
4 from
5 v$statname a
6 , v$sesstat b
7 where
8 a.statistic# = b.statistic#
9 and a.name = 'session cursor cache hits'
10 and b.sid = sys_context('userenv', 'sid');
old 3: , value - &value_1 as diff
new 3: , value - 5063 as diff
session cursor cache hits 2
Elapsed: 00:00:00.00
SQL>
SQL> select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor('&sql_id',null,'ALLSTATS LAST'));
old 1: select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor('&sql_id',null,'ALLSTATS LAST'))
new 1: select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor('fmbq5ytmh0hng',null,'ALLSTATS LAST'))
SQL_ID fmbq5ytmh0hng, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select sum(row_num) from ( select
row_number() over (partition by object_type order by object_name) as
row_num , t.* from t
where object_id > :x )
Plan hash value: 1399240396
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation | Name | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows | A-Time | Buffers | OMem | 1Mem | Used-Mem |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 0 | SELECT STATEMENT | | 1 | | 1 |00:00:00.01 | 3 | | | |
| 1 | SORT AGGREGATE | | 1 | 1 | 1 |00:00:00.01 | 3 | | | |
| 2 | VIEW | | 1 | 12 | 0 |00:00:00.01 | 3 | | | |
| 3 | WINDOW SORT | | 1 | 12 | 0 |00:00:00.01 | 3 | 1024 | 1024 | |
| 4 | TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID| T | 1 | 12 | 0 |00:00:00.01 | 3 | | | |
|* 5 | INDEX RANGE SCAN | I | 1 | 12 | 0 |00:00:00.01 | 3 | | | |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
5 - access("OBJECT_ID">:X)
25 rows selected.
Elapsed: 00:00:00.10
SQL>
SQL> exec :x := 100000
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
Elapsed: 00:00:00.01
SQL>
SQL> select
2 name
3 , value
4 from
5 v$statname a
6 , v$sesstat b
7 where
8 a.statistic# = b.statistic#
9 and a.name = 'session cursor cache hits'
10 and b.sid = sys_context('userenv', 'sid');
session cursor cache hits 5069
Elapsed: 00:00:00.00
SQL>
SQL> select
2 sum(row_num)
3 from
4 (
5 select
6 row_number() over (partition by object_type order by object_name) as row_num
7 , t.*
8 from
9 t
10 where
11 object_id > :x
12 );
Elapsed: 00:00:00.01
SQL>
SQL> select
2 name
3 , value - &value_1 as diff
4 from
5 v$statname a
6 , v$sesstat b
7 where
8 a.statistic# = b.statistic#
9 and a.name = 'session cursor cache hits'
10 and b.sid = sys_context('userenv', 'sid');
old 3: , value - &value_1 as diff
new 3: , value - 5069 as diff
session cursor cache hits 3
Elapsed: 00:00:00.00
SQL>
SQL> select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor('&sql_id',null,'ALLSTATS LAST'));
old 1: select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor('&sql_id',null,'ALLSTATS LAST'))
new 1: select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor('fmbq5ytmh0hng',null,'ALLSTATS LAST'))
SQL_ID fmbq5ytmh0hng, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select sum(row_num) from ( select
row_number() over (partition by object_type order by object_name) as
row_num , t.* from t
where object_id > :x )
Plan hash value: 1399240396
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation | Name | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows | A-Time | Buffers | OMem | 1Mem | Used-Mem |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 0 | SELECT STATEMENT | | 1 | | 1 |00:00:00.01 | 3 | | | |
| 1 | SORT AGGREGATE | | 1 | 1 | 1 |00:00:00.01 | 3 | | | |
| 2 | VIEW | | 1 | 12 | 0 |00:00:00.01 | 3 | | | |
| 3 | WINDOW SORT | | 1 | 12 | 0 |00:00:00.01 | 3 | 1024 | 1024 | |
| 4 | TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID| T | 1 | 12 | 0 |00:00:00.01 | 3 | | | |
|* 5 | INDEX RANGE SCAN | I | 1 | 12 | 0 |00:00:00.01 | 3 | | | |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
5 - access("OBJECT_ID">:X)
25 rows selected.
Elapsed: 00:00:00.11
SQL>
SQL> exec :x := 100000
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
Elapsed: 00:00:00.00
SQL>
SQL> select
2 name
3 , value
4 from
5 v$statname a
6 , v$sesstat b
7 where
8 a.statistic# = b.statistic#
9 and a.name = 'session cursor cache hits'
10 and b.sid = sys_context('userenv', 'sid');
session cursor cache hits 5080
Elapsed: 00:00:00.00
SQL>
SQL> select
2 sum(row_num)
3 from
4 (
5 select
6 row_number() over (partition by object_type order by object_name) as row_num
7 , t.*
8 from
9 t
10 where
11 object_id > :x
12 );
Elapsed: 00:00:00.01
SQL>
SQL> select
2 name
3 , value - &value_1 as diff
4 from
5 v$statname a
6 , v$sesstat b
7 where
8 a.statistic# = b.statistic#
9 and a.name = 'session cursor cache hits'
10 and b.sid = sys_context('userenv', 'sid');
old 3: , value - &value_1 as diff
new 3: , value - 5080 as diff
session cursor cache hits 3
Elapsed: 00:00:00.00
SQL>
SQL> select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor('&sql_id',null,'ALLSTATS LAST'));
old 1: select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor('&sql_id',null,'ALLSTATS LAST'))
new 1: select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor('fmbq5ytmh0hng',null,'ALLSTATS LAST'))
SQL_ID fmbq5ytmh0hng, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select sum(row_num) from ( select
row_number() over (partition by object_type order by object_name) as
row_num , t.* from t
where object_id > :x )
Plan hash value: 1399240396
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation | Name | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows | A-Time | Buffers | OMem | 1Mem | Used-Mem |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 0 | SELECT STATEMENT | | 1 | | 1 |00:00:00.01 | 3 | | | |
| 1 | SORT AGGREGATE | | 1 | 1 | 1 |00:00:00.01 | 3 | | | |
| 2 | VIEW | | 1 | 12 | 0 |00:00:00.01 | 3 | | | |
| 3 | WINDOW SORT | | 1 | 12 | 0 |00:00:00.01 | 3 | 1024 | 1024 | |
| 4 | TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID| T | 1 | 12 | 0 |00:00:00.01 | 3 | | | |
|* 5 | INDEX RANGE SCAN | I | 1 | 12 | 0 |00:00:00.01 | 3 | | | |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
5 - access("OBJECT_ID">:X)
25 rows selected.
Elapsed: 00:00:00.10
SQL>
SQL> exec :x := 1
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
Elapsed: 00:00:00.00
SQL>
SQL> select
2 name
3 , value
4 from
5 v$statname a
6 , v$sesstat b
7 where
8 a.statistic# = b.statistic#
9 and a.name = 'session cursor cache hits'
10 and b.sid = sys_context('userenv', 'sid');
session cursor cache hits 5090
Elapsed: 00:00:00.00
SQL>
SQL> select
2 sum(row_num)
3 from
4 (
5 select
6 row_number() over (partition by object_type order by object_name) as row_num
7 , t.*
8 from
9 t
10 where
11 object_id > :x
12 );
2.5311E+11
Elapsed: 00:00:17.12
SQL>
SQL> select
2 name
3 , value - &value_1 as diff
4 from
5 v$statname a
6 , v$sesstat b
7 where
8 a.statistic# = b.statistic#
9 and a.name = 'session cursor cache hits'
10 and b.sid = sys_context('userenv', 'sid');
old 3: , value - &value_1 as diff
new 3: , value - 5090 as diff
session cursor cache hits 3
Elapsed: 00:00:00.00
SQL>
SQL> select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor('&sql_id',null,'ALLSTATS LAST'));
old 1: select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor('&sql_id',null,'ALLSTATS LAST'))
new 1: select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor('fmbq5ytmh0hng',null,'ALLSTATS LAST'))
SQL_ID fmbq5ytmh0hng, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select sum(row_num) from ( select
row_number() over (partition by object_type order by object_name) as
row_num , t.* from t
where object_id > :x )
Plan hash value: 1399240396
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation | Name | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows | A-Time | Buffers | Reads | Writes | OMem | 1Mem | Used-Mem | Used-Tmp|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 0 | SELECT STATEMENT | | 1 | | 1 |00:00:17.10 | 1388K| 44110 | 10005 | | | | |
| 1 | SORT AGGREGATE | | 1 | 1 | 1 |00:00:17.10 | 1388K| 44110 | 10005 | | | | |
| 2 | VIEW | | 1 | 12 | 1385K|00:00:16.03 | 1388K| 44110 | 10005 | | | | |
| 3 | WINDOW SORT | | 1 | 12 | 1385K|00:00:16.03 | 1388K| 44110 | 10005 | 88M| 3227K| 55M (1)| 80896 |
| 4 | TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID| T | 1 | 12 | 1385K|00:00:09.70 | 1388K| 24154 | 0 | | | | |
|* 5 | INDEX RANGE SCAN | I | 1 | 12 | 1385K|00:00:01.39 | 3060 | 3059 | 0 | | | | |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
5 - access("OBJECT_ID">:X)
25 rows selected.
Elapsed: 00:00:00.11
SQL>
SQL> exec :x := 1
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
Elapsed: 00:00:00.00
SQL>
SQL> select
2 name
3 , value
4 from
5 v$statname a
6 , v$sesstat b
7 where
8 a.statistic# = b.statistic#
9 and a.name = 'session cursor cache hits'
10 and b.sid = sys_context('userenv', 'sid');
session cursor cache hits 5100
Elapsed: 00:00:00.00
SQL>
SQL> select
2 sum(row_num)
3 from
4 (
5 select
6 row_number() over (partition by object_type order by object_name) as row_num
7 , t.*
8 from
9 t
10 where
11 object_id > :x
12 );
2.5311E+11
Elapsed: 00:00:12.94
SQL>
SQL> select
2 name
3 , value - &value_1 as diff
4 from
5 v$statname a
6 , v$sesstat b
7 where
8 a.statistic# = b.statistic#
9 and a.name = 'session cursor cache hits'
10 and b.sid = sys_context('userenv', 'sid');
old 3: , value - &value_1 as diff
new 3: , value - 5100 as diff
session cursor cache hits 3
Elapsed: 00:00:00.01
SQL>
SQL> select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor('&sql_id',null,'ALLSTATS LAST'));
old 1: select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor('&sql_id',null,'ALLSTATS LAST'))
new 1: select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor('fmbq5ytmh0hng',null,'ALLSTATS LAST'))
SQL_ID fmbq5ytmh0hng, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select sum(row_num) from ( select
row_number() over (partition by object_type order by object_name) as
row_num , t.* from t
where object_id > :x )
Plan hash value: 1399240396
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation | Name | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows | A-Time | Buffers | Reads | Writes | OMem | 1Mem | Used-Mem | Used-Tmp|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 0 | SELECT STATEMENT | | 1 | | 1 |00:00:12.95 | 1388K| 44001 | 10005 | | | | |
| 1 | SORT AGGREGATE | | 1 | 1 | 1 |00:00:12.95 | 1388K| 44001 | 10005 | | | | |
| 2 | VIEW | | 1 | 12 | 1385K|00:00:12.29 | 1388K| 44001 | 10005 | | | | |
| 3 | WINDOW SORT | | 1 | 12 | 1385K|00:00:12.29 | 1388K| 44001 | 10005 | 88M| 3232K| 55M (1)| 80896 |
| 4 | TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID| T | 1 | 12 | 1385K|00:00:06.93 | 1388K| 24059 | 0 | | | | |
|* 5 | INDEX RANGE SCAN | I | 1 | 12 | 1385K|00:00:00.01 | 3060 | 3059 | 0 | | | | |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
5 - access("OBJECT_ID">:X)
25 rows selected.
Elapsed: 00:00:00.11
SQL>
SQL> exec :x := 1
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
Elapsed: 00:00:00.00
SQL>
SQL> select
2 name
3 , value
4 from
5 v$statname a
6 , v$sesstat b
7 where
8 a.statistic# = b.statistic#
9 and a.name = 'session cursor cache hits'
10 and b.sid = sys_context('userenv', 'sid');
session cursor cache hits 5110
Elapsed: 00:00:00.01
SQL>
SQL> select
2 sum(row_num)
3 from
4 (
5 select
6 row_number() over (partition by object_type order by object_name) as row_num
7 , t.*
8 from
9 t
10 where
11 object_id > :x
12 );
2.5311E+11
Elapsed: 00:00:06.02
SQL>
SQL> select
2 name
3 , value - &value_1 as diff
4 from
5 v$statname a
6 , v$sesstat b
7 where
8 a.statistic# = b.statistic#
9 and a.name = 'session cursor cache hits'
10 and b.sid = sys_context('userenv', 'sid');
old 3: , value - &value_1 as diff
new 3: , value - 5110 as diff
session cursor cache hits 3
Elapsed: 00:00:00.01
SQL>
SQL> select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor('&sql_id',null,'ALLSTATS LAST'));
old 1: select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor('&sql_id',null,'ALLSTATS LAST'))
new 1: select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor('fmbq5ytmh0hng',null,'ALLSTATS LAST'))
SQL_ID fmbq5ytmh0hng, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select sum(row_num) from ( select
row_number() over (partition by object_type order by object_name) as
row_num , t.* from t
where object_id > :x )
Plan hash value: 1399240396
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation | Name | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows | A-Time | Buffers | Reads | Writes | OMem | 1Mem | Used-Mem | Used-Tmp|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 0 | SELECT STATEMENT | | 1 | | 1 |00:00:12.95 | 1388K| 44001 | 10005 | | | | |
| 1 | SORT AGGREGATE | | 1 | 1 | 1 |00:00:12.95 | 1388K| 44001 | 10005 | | | | |
| 2 | VIEW | | 1 | 12 | 1385K|00:00:12.29 | 1388K| 44001 | 10005 | | | | |
| 3 | WINDOW SORT | | 1 | 12 | 1385K|00:00:12.29 | 1388K| 44001 | 10005 | 88M| 3232K| 55M (1)| 80896 |
| 4 | TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID| T | 1 | 12 | 1385K|00:00:06.93 | 1388K| 24059 | 0 | | | | |
|* 5 | INDEX RANGE SCAN | I | 1 | 12 | 1385K|00:00:00.01 | 3060 | 3059 | 0 | | | | |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
5 - access("OBJECT_ID">:X)
SQL_ID fmbq5ytmh0hng, child number 1
-------------------------------------
select sum(row_num) from ( select
row_number() over (partition by object_type order by object_name) as
row_num , t.* from t
where object_id > :x )
Plan hash value: 2719131525
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation | Name | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows | A-Time | Buffers | Reads | Writes | OMem | 1Mem | Used-Mem | Used-Tmp|
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 0 | SELECT STATEMENT | | 1 | | 1 |00:00:05.99 | 21058 | 34648 | 7955 | | | | |
| 1 | SORT AGGREGATE | | 1 | 1 | 1 |00:00:05.99 | 21058 | 34648 | 7955 | | | | |
| 2 | VIEW | | 1 | 1385K| 1385K|00:00:05.74 | 21058 | 34648 | 7955 | | | | |
| 3 | WINDOW SORT | | 1 | 1385K| 1385K|00:00:04.35 | 21058 | 34648 | 7955 | 69M| 2893K| 55M (1)| 64512 |
|* 4 | TABLE ACCESS FULL| T | 1 | 1385K| 1385K|00:00:00.01 | 21054 | 21049 | 0 | | | | |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
4 - filter("OBJECT_ID">:X)
49 rows selected.
Elapsed: 00:00:00.21
SQL>
SQL> set heading on
SQL>
SQL> select
2 sql_id
3 , child_number
4 , executions
5 , parse_calls
6 , buffer_gets
7 , is_bind_sensitive
8 , is_bind_aware
9 from
10 v$sql
11 where
12 sql_id = '&sql_id';
old 12: sql_id = '&sql_id'
new 12: sql_id = 'fmbq5ytmh0hng'
SQL_ID CHILD_NUMBER EXECUTIONS PARSE_CALLS BUFFER_GETS I I
------------- ------------ ---------- ----------- ----------- - -
fmbq5ytmh0hng 0 7 8 2777315 Y N
fmbq5ytmh0hng 1 1 0 21058 Y Y
Elapsed: 00:00:00.03
SQL>
So we can see that from the third execution on we seem to get a hit in the session cursor cache (increase from 2 to 3), but still ACS seems to work properly, although this time it had to go wrong twice before ACS created the second child cursor. We can also see that we still get as many PARSE calls as executions, so the session cursor cache does not avoid the parsing as outlined above.
All this seems to suggest that the ACS (and potentially the "Cardinality Feedback", too) code is only triggered by a PARSE call and not evaluated as part of an EXECUTE call.
But if this was the case, then by no means the problem would be limited to PL/SQL and its clever optimizations that try to hold cursors open to avoid repeated PARSE calls.
Actually one of the core principles that we are told to make an application as scalable as possible is to parse only once but execute many times. So let's try to simulate such a well behaving application with this simple Java code snippet that accesses the database via JDBC:
class JDBCQuery
{
public static void main( String args[] )
{
try
{
// Load the database driver
Class.forName( "oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver" ) ;
// Get a connection to the database
Connection conn = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:oracle:thin:@host:port:sid",
"username", "pwd");
// Print all warnings
for( SQLWarning warn = conn.getWarnings(); warn != null; warn = warn.getNextWarning() )
{
System.out.println( "SQL Warning:" ) ;
System.out.println( "State : " + warn.getSQLState() ) ;
System.out.println( "Message: " + warn.getMessage() ) ;
System.out.println( "Error : " + warn.getErrorCode() ) ;
}
// Reset the buffer cache and shared pool
Statement ddl = conn.createStatement();
ddl.executeUpdate("alter system flush shared_pool");
ddl.executeUpdate("alter system flush buffer_cache");
ddl.close();
// Prepare the statement
String query =
"select\n" +
" sum(row_num)\n" +
"from\n" +
" (\n" +
" select\n" +
" row_number() over (partition by object_type order by object_name) as row_num\n" +
" , t.*\n" +
" from\n" +
" t\n" +
" where\n" +
" object_id > ?\n" +
" )";
PreparedStatement stmt = conn.prepareStatement(query);
System.out.println(query);
Integer i;
Integer id;
for (i = 1; i <= 10; i++)
{
if (i == 1)
{
id = 100000;
}
else
{
id = 1;
}
System.out.println( "Iteration: " + i.toString() ) ;
stmt.setInt(1, id);
long startTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
// Execute the query
ResultSet rs = stmt.executeQuery();
// Loop through the result set
while( rs.next() )
System.out.println( rs.getLong(1)) ;
// Close the result set
rs.close() ;
long endTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
float seconds = (endTime - startTime) / 1000F;
// Elapsed time
System.out.println(Float.toString(seconds) + " seconds.");
}
stmt.close() ;
conn.close() ;
}
catch( SQLException se )
{
System.out.println( "SQL Exception:" ) ;
// Loop through the SQL Exceptions
while( se != null )
{
System.out.println( "State : " + se.getSQLState() ) ;
System.out.println( "Message: " + se.getMessage() ) ;
System.out.println( "Error : " + se.getErrorCode() ) ;
se = se.getNextException() ;
}
}
catch( Exception e )
{
System.out.println( e ) ;
}
}
}
/*
Check the Shared Pool by this query:
select
sql_id
, child_number
, executions
, parse_calls
, buffer_gets
, disk_reads
, direct_writes
, is_bind_sensitive
, is_bind_aware
from
v$sql
where
sql_id = 'cq3a8ukkws0su';
*/
This (by no means elegant or clever) piece of Java code again tries to do the same as our previous examples: It executes the known query ten times but behaves well since it parses only once and executes ten times using the two different bind values as already done before.
I only tested this with the JDBC thin driver that comes with Oracle 11.2.0.2 but not with the thick driver. However, since I assume that 95%+ of all Java applications out there actually use the thin driver this probably covers the most relevant case.
The results correspond to those of the PL/SQL examples with the "keep cursors open" optimization enabled: Neither ACS nor "Cardinality Feedback" kick in, and the SQL is executed every time using the same execution plan. The SQL is only parsed once, so the problem is not really limited to PL/SQL, but to every application that tries to avoid parse calls.
Summary
ACS is a great feature, but you need to be aware of its limitations, the most important being:
- Things have to go wrong first before ACS will be able to provide a fix. Depending on how "wrong" things can go, this might mean that ACS is actually not able to provide an efficient fix for certain cases
- The ACS information can be aged out of the Shared Pool which might lead to repeated "things have to go wrong" cases
- ACS is only triggered by explicit PARSE calls, it is not activated if the application parses once and executes many times
If you have a case where you need to help (or "co-operate" as Jonathan Lewis calls it in his brilliant presentation of the same name) your database, the simplest strategy is to use literals instead of bind variables. If you can't do this due to the issues introduced by this strategy (excessive hard parses, increased CPU and Shared Pool usage, library cache contention etc.) a more complex strategy - if applicable - is to "know your data" and generate a minimum amount of cursors that try to cover the cases where a different execution plan is desired.
This means something like this in pseudo code:
- If "known value A that requires a special treatment" then
-- execute SQL with dummy hint "A" or additional non-modifying predicate "A" = "A" to make the SQL unique
- If "known value B that requires a special treatment" then
-- execute SQL with dummy hint "B" or additional non-modifying predicate "B" = "B" to make the SQL unique
- Else "in all other cases"
-- execute SQL as is
Notice that using comments to make the SQL unique might not lead to the expected result since there are cases/environments where comments are stripped prior to execution.
Update: From a comment by Sokrates below that for some reason didn't make to the comments section but also doesn't show up in the "Spam" comments of the blog control panel I see that above description "dummy hint" might need a bit more explanation.
By "dummy hint" I mean to say that you should use hint syntax rather than normal comment syntax to make the SQL unique, because the normal comment might get filtered out whereas the comment using hint syntax is supposed to be kept. By "dummy hint" I mean any invalid hint comment in order to prevent any influence on the optimizer, for example /*+ CASE_A */ rather than /* CASE_A */
This month I’ll be doing some PL/SQL Masterclasses for Oracle University. The following dates have been confirmed:
For more details contact Oracle University here.
Originally there was an extra session in Hong Kong, but this has now been cancelled.
In November the following dates are scheduled:
Cheers
Tim…
It’s a little over a month before I start a run of four PL/SQL Masterclasses in the Asia Pacific region.
If you are interested, contact Oracle and get booked on. The details are here: APAC Seminars.
Cheers
Tim…
Here is a recent thread from OTN forums. The question raised is WTF? whether a hint in the examples section of DBMS_PARALLEL_EXECUTE documentation have to be used or not and why it is there. What do you think about it? Have a look in the documentation and mark your choice in a poll: PS. In [...]![]()
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