Why guess when you can know for sure! > So my question is: What might account for the huge difference in run time > between the first run and successive runs? Just run a "Cary" trace (10046 level 12) on the runs and look at the difference in where time is spent? -- John Kanagaraj <>< http://www.linkedin.com/in/johnkanagaraj http://jkanagaraj.wordpress.com (Sorry - not an Oracle blog!) ** The opinions and facts contained in this message are entirely mine and do not reflect those of my employer or customers ** -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l