/*+ no_merge */ goes after the select keyword in the in-line view, or you can use /*+ no_merge (alias) */ after the select that has the in-line view in its from clause. I haven't been following your thread closely - but I don know that analytic functions can, on occasion, be unfolded from views, but are more likely to be instantiated. I would be surprised if the code to do the unfolding worked every time it was supposed to. I guess in your case, the use of the index full scan has been considered as the cheap way of instantiating the view across the whole table because it avoids makes the window sorts effectively free. Regards Jonathan Lewis http://www.jlcomp.demon.co.uk The educated person is not the person who can answer the questions, but the person who can question the answers -- T. Schick Jr Next public appearances: Jan 29th 2004 UKOUG Unix SIG - v$ and x$ March 2004 Hotsos Symposium - The Burden of Proof March 2004 Charlotte NC OUG - CBO Tutorial April 2004 Iceland One-day tutorials: http://www.jlcomp.demon.co.uk/tutorial.html Three-day seminar: see http://www.jlcomp.demon.co.uk/seminar.html ____UK___February ____UK___June The Co-operative Oracle Users' FAQ http://www.jlcomp.demon.co.uk/faq/ind_faq.html ---------------------------------------------------------------- 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 -----------------------------------------------------------------