Nope - the creation date is the original date the index was created. I really need to come up with a test case but never have time to execute on it. I'll see if I can get to that today. Chris -----Original Message----- From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Peter Hitchman Sent: Tuesday, April 09, 2013 10:36 AM To: oracle-l Subject: Re: Question: MERGE or INSERT /*+ APPEND */ causes INDEX DDL? Hi I have never taken that to mean it does a DDL operation, but I'll admit I have never actually traced this type of operation. Surely for it to be DDL it means that the index is dropped and re-created? Regards Pete -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l