Thanks to all who replied. I have trimmed this down to a *much* simpler test case. There is NO SQL so the opportunity for tuning is limited. I'm pretty sure it must be a bug with 11.1 but I'd be grateful if someone also running 11.1 could try my test case ... [stbaldwin@opbld03 ~]$ sqlplus usr/xxx SQL*Plus: Release 11.1.0.7.0 - Production on Mon Jan 4 03:24:37 2010 Copyright (c) 1982, 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved. Connected to: Oracle Database 11g Release 11.1.0.7.0 - 64bit Production With the Real Application Clusters option SQL> set timing on SQL> set echo on SQL> @jproc SQL> create or replace procedure junk as 2 l_callstack VARCHAR2(4096) := dbms_utility.format_call_stack; 3 begin 4 null; 5 end junk; 6 / Procedure created. Elapsed: 00:00:00.02 SQL> @interp SQL> alter session set plsql_code_type = interpreted; Session altered. Elapsed: 00:00:00.00 SQL> alter procedure junk compile; Procedure altered. Elapsed: 00:00:00.01 SQL> @sb8 SQL> begin 2 for i in 1 .. 10000 loop 3 junk; 4 end loop; 5 end; 6 / PL/SQL procedure successfully completed. Elapsed: 00:00:00.04 SQL> @native SQL> alter session set plsql_code_type = native; Session altered. Elapsed: 00:00:00.00 SQL> alter procedure junk compile; Procedure altered. Elapsed: 00:00:00.02 SQL> @sb8 SQL> begin 2 for i in 1 .. 10000 loop 3 junk; 4 end loop; 5 end; 6 / PL/SQL procedure successfully completed. Elapsed: 00:02:03.38 As you can see, it is now a standalone procedure that calls dbms_utility.format_call_stack *and nothing else*. I don't know what happens in dbms_utility.format_call_stack but all my code is pure pl/sql so there is presumably no context switching. I have tried natively compiling dbms_utility but it makes no difference to the results. Thanks again, Steve On Sun, Dec 27, 2009 at 3:32 AM, Andre van Winssen <dreveewee@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > Hi Steve, > > > > I ran it against 11.2 multiple times and cannot reproduce the behavior you > describe. I see following consistent results: > > > > plsql_code_type = interpreted => 3.21 secs > > plsql_code_type = native => 2.9 secs > > > > (nr of iterations set to 10000) > > > > To be able to test this I had to add a missing table db_error_stack_context > which is referenced type declarations in msc$log_p (e.g. SUBTYPE stSource IS > db_error_stack_context.context_at%TYPE): > > > > create table db_error_stack_context > > (context_at varchar2(1024) > > ,context_value varchar2(1024) > > ,context_name varchar2(1024) > > ); > > > > Regards, > > Andre