Hello, I have a query using LIKE with the ESCAPE clause to search for an underscore '_' as a literal value. When I run the query with the ESCAPE clause it takes much longer then when the same query is run without the ESCAPE clause. I thought maybe it was an index issue, but explain plans for both queries are identical. I also tried rebuilding the indexes on the table, but that made no improvement. Does anyone have any suggestions...I am stumped! Time to delete row with value "EZ_COMPARE" ==> 2 min. 54 secs. Time to delete row with value "EZCOMPARE" ==> 2 secs. Thank you in advance, Traci L. Rebman -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l