> EC> But how does Oracle plan to "speed up" sorts? > > My guess would be that they've come up with some new > algorithms that are more efficient, or, at least, they > believe those new algorithms to be more efficient under most > circumstances. Just guessing here, but it might also that Oracle picks the most optimal algorithm based on estimated data (using optimizer statistics, execution statistics and dynamic sampling...) Tanel. -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l