I traced a very simple SQL statement (10046 level 12). Something like: select id from issues which returned 195 rows. Here's a snippet from my trace file and on the PARSE line I get the following: PARSING IN CURSOR #5 len=40 dep=0 uid=49 oct=3 lid=49 tim=1227288824370256 hv=1876028296 ad='777f6f40' select id from issues END OF STMT PARSE #5:c=11998,e=11427,p=0,cr=0,cu=0,mis=1,r=0,dep=0,og=1,tim=1227288824370250 BINDS #5: EXEC #5:c=0,e=82,p=0,cr=0,cu=0,mis=0,r=0,dep=0,og=1,tim=1227288824370419 My understanding was that the e ~ c + SUM ela (Optimizing Oracle Performance, Ch 5 p87, Millsap). So why is my e value less than my c value? Should it not be greater than or equal to my c value? Database is 64-bit 10gR2 EE on RHAS 4u7. Thanks -- mohammed -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l