Hi Excerpt of page 391 of TOP: Up to Oracle9i Release 2 patchset 9.2.0.3, in order to create a function-based index, a user requires the system privilege query rewrite. In addition, the query optimizer takes such an index into consideration only when the initialization parameter query_rewrite_enabled is set to TRUE and the initialization parameter query_rewrite_integrity is set to either trusted or stale_tolerated. As described in MetaLink note "Bug 2799028" (2799028.8), these requirements are no longer necessary as of patchset 9.2.0.4. HTH Chris Antognini Troubleshooting Oracle Performance, Apress 2008 http://top.antognini.ch -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l