SQL Patch IV – Why is the SQL Patch applied but not effective?

(or Part II Addendum)

In a comment on one of my previous articles about SQL Patches, a reader (hurrah!) effectively asks the question “Why is my SQL Patch being applied but the hint not obeyed?”

The original article itself was long enough without me adding a long comment so I’d like to break out into a fresh post.

Here is the test case.

Setup:

SQL> create table a_test as select * from dba_tables;

Table created.

SQL> create index a_test_idx on a_test(table_name);

Index created.

SQL> exec dbms_stats.gather_table_stats(user, 'a_test');

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

SQL> select table_name from a_test where table_name='xxx';

no rows selected

SQL> select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor);

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SQL_ID  d4knkaxjhqpgw, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select table_name from a_test where table_name='xxx'

Plan hash value: 2434419982

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id  | Operation        | Name       | Rows  | Bytes | Cost (%CPU)| Time     |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|   0 | SELECT STATEMENT |            |       |       |     1 (100)|          |
|*  1 |  INDEX RANGE SCAN| A_TEST_IDX |     1 |    18 |     1   (0)| 00:00:01 |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------

   1 - access("TABLE_NAME"='xxx')

Create a patch to hint a FULL TABLE SCAN:

SQL> begin
  2     sys.dbms_sqldiag_internal.i_create_patch
  3     (sql_text  => 'select table_name from a_test a where table_name=''xxx''',
  4      hint_text => 'full(a)',
  5      name      => 'patch_test');
  6  end;
  7  /

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

See that the patch is applied but the hint apparently not obeyed:

SQL> select table_name from a_test a where table_name='xxx';

no rows selected

SQL> select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor);

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SQL_ID  frmrwzdcc9p65, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select table_name from a_test a where table_name='xxx'

Plan hash value: 2434419982

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id  | Operation        | Name       | Rows  | Bytes | Cost (%CPU)| Time     |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|   0 | SELECT STATEMENT |            |       |       |     1 (100)|          |
|*  1 |  INDEX RANGE SCAN| A_TEST_IDX |     1 |    18 |     1   (0)| 00:00:01 |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------

   1 - access("TABLE_NAME"='xxx')

Note
-----
   - SQL patch "patch_test" used for this statement

The issue is that to use a SQL Patch to hint a statement, it seems that you have to be very careful to use the complete hint specification.

The complete hint specification is an ugly beast and should be considered a strong indicator that you really want to think twice before doing any hinting, and especially as Oracle versions march onwards and the Optimizer gets more complicated, the complete hint specification becomes ever more important.
See Jonathan Lewis’s How to Hint post for a good illustration.

Back to the test case…

If we drop the existing sql patch:

SQL> begin
  2   sys.dbms_sqldiag.drop_sql_patch('patch_test');
  3  end;
  4  /

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

Use the +OUTLINE format option for DBMS_XPLAN to get a nudge in the right direction:

SQL> select table_name from a_test a where table_name='xxx';

no rows selected

SQL> select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor(format=> '+OUTLINE'));

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SQL_ID  frmrwzdcc9p65, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select table_name from a_test a where table_name='xxx'

Plan hash value: 2434419982

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id  | Operation        | Name       | Rows  | Bytes | Cost (%CPU)| Time     |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|   0 | SELECT STATEMENT |            |       |       |     1 (100)|          |
|*  1 |  INDEX RANGE SCAN| A_TEST_IDX |     1 |    18 |     1   (0)| 00:00:01 |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Outline Data
-------------

  /*+
      BEGIN_OUTLINE_DATA
      IGNORE_OPTIM_EMBEDDED_HINTS
      OPTIMIZER_FEATURES_ENABLE('11.2.0.3')
      DB_VERSION('11.2.0.3')
      OPT_PARAM('optimizer_dynamic_sampling' 4)
      ALL_ROWS
      OUTLINE_LEAF(@"SEL$1")
      INDEX(@"SEL$1" "A"@"SEL$1" ("A_TEST"."TABLE_NAME"))
      END_OUTLINE_DATA
  */

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------

   1 - access("TABLE_NAME"='xxx')

And create our patch with the complete specification:

SQL> begin
  2     sys.dbms_sqldiag_internal.i_create_patch
  3     (sql_text  => 'select table_name from a_test a where table_name=''xxx''',
  4      hint_text => 'FULL(@"SEL$1" "A"@"SEL$1")',
  5      name      => 'patch_test');
  6  end;
  7  /

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

We should find that it is more effective:

SQL> select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor);

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SQL_ID  frmrwzdcc9p65, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select table_name from a_test a where table_name='xxx'

Plan hash value: 3679270240

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id  | Operation         | Name   | Rows  | Bytes | Cost (%CPU)| Time     |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|   0 | SELECT STATEMENT  |        |       |       |    40 (100)|          |
|*  1 |  TABLE ACCESS FULL| A_TEST |     1 |    18 |    40   (0)| 00:00:01 |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------

   1 - filter("TABLE_NAME"='xxx')

Note
-----
   - SQL patch "patch_test" used for this statement


22 rows selected.

SQL>

Bear in mind that the above is a test case only and consider what I said in the original article about what I consider to be the difference between a SQL Patch and a SQL Plan Baseline is and the different use cases.

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