Web applications often do this to implement "pagination". See also: http://asktom.oracle.com/pls/asktom/f?p=100:11:0::NO::P11_QUESTION_ID:1137577300346084930 Toon Koppelaars RuleGen BV +31-615907269 Toon.Koppelaars@xxxxxxxxxxx http://www.RuleGen.com http://thehelsinkideclaration.blogspot.com (co)Author: "Applied Mathematics for Database Professionals" http://www.RuleGen.com/pls/apex/f?p=14265:13 On Fri, Mar 20, 2009 at 11:58 AM, FmHabash <fmhabash@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > I see often times applications run such query on a high frequency basis and > this seemingly harmless query becomes a top cpu consumer. > For whatever reason applications need to do this, how else such query can > written to avoid the FTS it often does. > In a quick test, I saw doing count(primary key) is much faster and xplan > shows index vs. FTS access path. > For this particular issue, there is no PK on the table and using a UK does > guarantee a not-null value. > Any other ideas (parallel exec is not an option). > > Thanks > -- > //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l > > >