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Optimizer hints OraDev.com

Performance How to use hints in Oracle sql for performance

Info on performance With hints one can influence the optimizer. The usage of hints (with exception of
dbms_profiler explained the RULE-hint) causes Oracle to use the Cost Based optimizer.
How to use hints
Undocumented hints The following syntax is used for hints:
How to Trace sessions
Create statistics select /*+ HINT */ name
from emp
where id =1;

Where HINT is replaced by the hint text.

When the syntax of the hint text is incorrect, the hint text is ignored and will not
be used.
here you can find undocumented hints.

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Hints for Optimization Approaches and Goals

The ALL_ROWS hint explicitly chooses the

cost-based approach to optimize a
ALL_ROWS statement block with a goal of best
throughput (that is, minimum total resource
consumption).
The FIRST_ROWS hint explicitly chooses
the cost-based approach to optimize a
statement block with a goal of best
response time (minimum resource usage to
FIRST_ROWS return first row). In newer Oracle version
you should give a parameter with this hint:
FIRST_ROWS(n) means that the optimizer
will determine an executionplan to give a
fast response for returning the first n rows.
The CHOOSE hint causes the optimizer to
choose between the rule-based approach
and the cost-based approach for a SQL
CHOOSE
statement based on the presence of
statistics for the tables accessed by the
statement
The RULE hint explicitly chooses
rule-based optimization for a statement
block. This hint also causes the optimizer to
RULE
ignore any other hints specified for the
statement block. The RULE hint does not
work any more in Oracle 10g.

Hints for Access Paths

The FULL hint explicitly chooses a full table

FULL scan for the specified table. The syntax of
the FULL hint is FULL(table) where table

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specifies the alias of the table (or table

name if alias does not exist) on which the
full table scan is to be performed.
The ROWID hint explicitly chooses a table
scan by ROWID for the specified table.
The syntax of the ROWID hint is
ROWID(table) where table specifies the
ROWID
name or alias of the table on which the
table access by ROWID is to be
performed. (This hint depricated in Oracle
10g)
The CLUSTER hint explicitly chooses a
cluster scan to access the specified table.
The syntax of the CLUSTER hint is
CLUSTER
CLUSTER(table) where table specifies the
name or alias of the table to be accessed
by a cluster scan.
The HASH hint explicitly chooses a hash
scan to access the specified table. The
HASH syntax of the HASH hint is HASH(table)
where table specifies the name or alias of
the table to be accessed by a hash scan.
The HASH_AJ hint transforms a NOT IN
subquery into a hash anti-join to access the
specified table. The syntax of the HASH_AJ
HASH_AJ
hint is HASH_AJ(table) where table
specifies the name or alias of the table to
be accessed.(depricated in Oracle 10g)
The INDEX hint explicitly chooses an index
scan for the specified table. The syntax of
the INDEX hint is INDEX(table index)
where:table specifies the name or alias of
INDEX the table associated with the index to be
scanned and index specifies an index on
which an index scan is to be performed.
This hint may optionally specify one or
more indexes:
The NO_INDEX hint explicitly disallows a
set of indexes for the specified table. The
NO_INDEX
syntax of the NO_INDEX hint is
NO_INDEX(table index)
The INDEX_ASC hint explicitly chooses an
index scan for the specified table. If the
INDEX_ASC statement uses an index range scan,
Oracle scans the index entries in ascending
order of their indexed values.
If no indexes are given as arguments for
the INDEX_COMBINE hint, the optimizer
will use on the table whatever boolean
combination of bitmap indexes has the best
cost estimate. If certain indexes are given
INDEX_COMBINE
as arguments, the optimizer will try to use
some boolean combination of those
particular bitmap indexes. The syntax of
INDEX_COMBINE is
INDEX_COMBINE(table index).
Explicitly instructs the optimizer to use an
index join as an access path. For the hint to
have a positive effect, a sufficiently small
INDEX_JOIN
number of indexes must exist that contain
all the columns required to resolve the
query.
The INDEX_DESC hint explicitly chooses
an index scan for the specified table. If the
INDEX_DESC statement uses an index range scan,
Oracle scans the index entries in
descending order of their indexed values.
This hint causes a fast full index scan to be
INDEX_FFS
performed rather than a full table.

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Do not use fast full index scan (from Oracle

NO_INDEX_FFS
10g)
Exclude range scan from query plan (from
INDEX_SS
Oracle 10g)
Exclude range scan from query plan (from
INDEX_SS_ASC
Oracle 10g)
Exclude range scan from query plan (from
INDEX_SS_DESC
Oracle 10g)
The NO_INDEX_SS hint causes the
optimizer to exclude a skip scan of the
NO_INDEX_SS
specified indexes on the specified table.
(from Oracle 10g)

Hints for Query Transformations

Prevents the optimizer performing query

NO_QUERY_TRANSFORMATION
transformations. (from Oracle 10g)
The USE_CONCAT hint forces combined
OR conditions in the WHERE clause of a
query to be transformed into a compound
query using the UNION ALL set operator.
USE_CONCAT
Normally, this transformation occurs only if
the cost of the query using the
concatenations is cheaper than the cost
without them.
The NO_EXPAND hint prevents the
optimizer from considering OR-expansion
for queries having OR conditions or IN-lists
NO_EXPAND in the WHERE clause. Usually, the
optimizer considers using OR expansion
and uses this method if it decides that the
cost is lower than not using it.
The REWRITE hint forces the optimizer to
rewrite a query in terms of materialized
views, when possible, without cost
consideration. Use the REWRITE hint with
REWRITE
or without a view list. If you use REWRITE
with a view list and the list contains an
eligible materialized view, then Oracle uses
that view regardless of its cost.
In Oracle 10g renamed to NO_REWRITE.
The NOREWRITE/NO_REWRITE hint
NOREWRITE / NO_REWRITE disables query rewrite for the query block,
overriding the setting of the parameter
QUERY_REWRITE_ENABLED.
The MERGE hint lets you merge views in a
MERGE
query.
The NO_MERGE hint causes Oracle not to
merge mergeable views. This hint is most
NO_MERGE often used to reduce the number of
possible permutations for a query and
make optimization faster.
The FACT hint indicated that the table
should be considered as a fact table. This
FACT
is used in the context of the star
transformation.
The NO_FACT hint is used in the context of
the star transformation to indicate to the
NO_FACT
transformation that the hinted table should
not be considered as a fact table.
The STAR_TRANSFORMATION hint
makes the optimizer use the best plan in
which the transformation has been used.
Without the hint, the optimizer could make a
STAR_TRANSFORMATION
query optimization decision to use the best
plan generated without the transformation,
instead of the best plan for the transformed
query.

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Do not use star transformation (from

NO_STAR_TRANSFORMATION
Oracle 10g)
The UNNEST hint specifies subquery
UNNEST
unnesting.
Use of the NO_UNNEST hint turns off
NO_UNNEST
unnesting for specific subquery blocks.

Hints for Join Orders

Give this hint to indicate the leading table in

a join. This will indicate only 1 table. If you
LEADING want to specify the whole order of tables,
you can use the ORDERED hint. Syntax:
LEADING(table)
The ORDERED hint causes Oracle to join
tables in the order in which they appear in
the FROM clause. If you omit the
ORDERED hint from a SQL statement
performing a join , the optimizer chooses
the order in which to join the tables. You
ORDERED may want to use the ORDERED hint to
specify a join order if you know something
about the number of rows selected from
each table that the optimizer does not.
Such information would allow you to choose
an inner and outer table better than the
optimizer could.

Hints for Join Operations

The USE_NL hint causes Oracle to join

each specified table to another row source
with a nested loops join using the specified
table as the inner table. The syntax of the
USE_NL
USE_NL hint is USE_NL(table table) where
table is the name or alias of a table to be
used as the inner table of a nested loops
join.
NO_USE_NL Do not use nested loop (from Oracle 10g)
Specifies a nested loops join. (from Oracle
USE_NL_WITH_INDEX
10g)
The USE_MERGE hint causes Oracle to
join each specified table with another row
source with a sort-merge join. The syntax
of the USE_MERGE hint is
USE_MERGE
USE_MERGE(table table) where table is a
table to be joined to the row source
resulting from joining the previous tables in
the join order using a sort-merge join.
NO_USE_MERGE Do not use merge (from Oracle 10g)
The USE_HASH hint causes Oracle to join
each specified table with another row
source with a hash join. The syntax of the
USE_HASH hint is USE_HASH(table table)
USE_HASH
where table is a table to be joined to the
row source resulting from joining the
previous tables in the join order using a
hash join.
NO_USE_HASH Do not use hash (from Oracle 10g)
Hints for Parallel Execution
The PARALLEL hint allows you to specify
the desired number of concurrent query
servers that can be used for the query. The
syntax is PARALLEL(table number
PARALLEL
number). The PARALLEL hint must use the
table alias if an alias is specified in the
query. The PARALLEL hint can then take
two values separated by commas after the

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table name. The first value specifies the

degree of parallelism for the given table,
the second value specifies how the table is
to be split among the instances of a parallel
server. Specifying DEFAULT or no value
signifies the query coordinator should
examine the settings of the initialization
parameters (described in a later section) to
determine the default degree of parallelism.
The NOPARALLEL hint allows you to
disable parallel scanning of a table, even if
NOPARALLEL / NO_PARALLEL the table was created with a PARALLEL
clause. In Oracle 10g this hint was
renamed to NO_PARALLEL.
The PQ_DISTRIBUTE hint improves the
performance of parallel join operations. Do
this by specifying how rows of joined tables
PQ_DISTRIBUTE should be distributed among producer and
consumer query servers. Using this hint
overrides decisions the optimizer would
normally make.
The NO_PARALLEL_INDEX hint overrides
NO_PARALLEL_INDEX a PARALLEL attribute setting on an index
to avoid a parallel index scan operation.
Additional Hints
When the APPEND hint is used with the
INSERT statement, data is appended to
the table. Existing free space in the block is
APPEND not used. If a table or an index is specified
with nologging, this hint applied with an
insert statement produces a direct path
insert which reduces generation of redo.
NOAPPEND Overrides the append mode.
The CACHE hint specifies that the blocks
retrieved for the table in the hint are placed
at the most recently used end of the LRU
list in the buffer cache when a full table
CACHE
scan is performed. This option is useful for
small lookup tables. In the following
example, the CACHE hint overrides the
table default caching specification.
The NOCACHE hint specifies that the
blocks retrieved for this table are placed at
the least recently used end of the LRU list
NOCACHE
in the buffer cache when a full table scan is
performed. This is the normal behavior of
blocks in the buffer cache.
The PUSH_PRED hint forces pushing of a
PUSH_PRED
join predicate into the view.
The NO_PUSH_PRED hint prevents
NO_PUSH_PRED
pushing of a join predicate into the view.
The PUSH_SUBQ hint causes nonmerged
PUSH_SUBQ subqueries to be evaluated at the earliest
possible place in the execution plan.
The NO_PUSH_SUBQ hint causes
NO_PUSH_SUBQ non-merged subqueries to be evaluated as
the last step in the execution plan.
Specifies a name for a query block. (from
QB_NAME
Oracle 10g)
Oracle can replace literals in SQL
statements with bind variables, if it is safe
to do so. This is controlled with the
CURSOR_SHARING startup parameter.
CURSOR_SHARING_EXACT The CURSOR_SHARING_EXACT hint
causes this behavior to be switched off. In
other words, Oracle executes the SQL
statement without any attempt to replace
literals by bind variables.

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The DRIVING_SITE hint forces query

DRIVING_SITE execution to be done for the table at a
different site than that selected by Oracle
The DYNAMIC_SAMPLING hint lets you
control dynamic sampling to improve server
performance by determining more accurate
predicate selectivity and statistics for
tables and indexes. You can set the value
DYNAMIC_SAMPLING of DYNAMIC_SAMPLING to a value from 0
to 10. The higher the level, the more effort
the compiler puts into dynamic sampling
and the more broadly it is applied.
Sampling defaults to cursor level unless you
specify a table.
This hint omits some of the compile time
optimizations of the rules, mainly detailed
dependency graph analysis, on
spreadsheets. Some optimizations such as
SPREAD_MIN_ANALYSIS
creating filters to selectively populate
spreadsheet access structures and limited
rule pruning are still used. (from Oracle
10g)
Hints with unknown status
The MERGE_AJ hint transforms a NOT IN
subquery into a merge anti-join to access
the specified table. The syntax of the
MERGE_AJ MERGE_AJ hint is MERGE_AJ(table)
where table specifies the name or alias of
the table to be accessed.(depricated in
Oracle 10g)
The AND_EQUAL hint explicitly chooses an
execution plan that uses an access path
that merges the scans on several single-
column indexes. The syntax of the
AND_EQUAL hint is AND_EQUAL(table
index index) where table specifies the name
AND_EQUAL
or alias of the table associated with the
indexes to be merged. and index specifies
an index on which an index scan is to be
performed. You must specify at least two
indexes. You cannot specify more than five.
(depricated in Oracle 10g)
The STAR hint forces the large table to be
joined last using a nested loops join on the
STAR index. The optimizer will consider different
permutations of the small tables.
(depricated in Oracle 10g)
Usage: BITMAP(table_name index_name)
BITMAP Uses a bitmap index to access the table.
(depricated ?)
Use a Hash Anti-Join to evaluate a NOT IN
sub-query. Use this hint in the sub-query,
not in the main query. Use this when your
HASH_SJ high volume NOT IN sub-query is using a
FILTER or NESTED LOOPS join. Try
MERGE_AJ if HASH_AJ refuses to
work.(depricated in Oracle 10g)
Use a Nested Loop in a sub-query.
NL_SJ
(depricated in Oracle 10g)
Use an anti-join in a sub-query. (depricated
NL_AJ
in Oracle 10g)
ORDERED_PREDICATES (depricated in Oracle 10g)
EXPAND_GSET_TO_UNION (depricated in Oracle 10g)
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