Hi Muqthra I didn't saw your post sorry I didn't have time to see it. The note is right But from the note: This enhancement improves the usability of the parameter for situations where FORCE would normally cause a different, undesired execution plan. With CURSOR_SHARING=SIMILAR, Oracle determines which literals are "safe" for substitution with bind variables. If you had binded properly, using bind when needed and not binding for histograms for example. You don't have to use SIMILAR. SIMLAR causes Oracle determines which literals are "safe" for substitution with bind variables, and does that substitution. I really don't know if this is an important overhead but this is something you definetively don't need when you had binded correctly everything. This is finally only a patch ( a "safe" patch) for problems in binding. My point was, the ideal goal is to bind every thing properly, and then set the value to EXACT, if SIMILAR is harmless and overheadless ( I don't know if previous word exists :), maybe I'm enriching English vocabulary ) is other point. :) Muqthar Ahmed DBA Juan Carlos Reyes Pacheco OCP Database 9.2 Standard Edition Juan Carlos Reyes Pacheco OCP Database 9.2 Standard Edition ---------------------------------------------------------------- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe send email to: oracle-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx put 'unsubscribe' in the subject line. -- Archives are at //www.freelists.org/archives/oracle-l/ FAQ is at //www.freelists.org/help/fom-serve/cache/1.html -----------------------------------------------------------------