Thomas, Bear in mind that when something is stripped down to the bare minimum to identify the critical point, it can look "obviously wrong". Oracle can do the same sort of FILTER trick at run time with bind variables - and it is possible for users to be unaware that they are supplying predicates that Oracle "knows" will return an empty set. Regards Jonathan Lewis http://www.jlcomp.demon.co.uk/faq/ind_faq.html The Co-operative Oracle Users' FAQ http://www.jlcomp.demon.co.uk/seminar.html Public Appearances - schedule updated Jan 21st 2005 ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mercadante, Thomas F" <thomas.mercadante@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> To: <Waleed.Khedr@xxxxxxx>; <oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Monday, March 07, 2005 6:40 PM Subject: RE: Stop Criteria for Sql Execution Waleed, Maybe Oracle should be smarter and recognize the craziness of the query. But then, maybe the developer should also recognize the problem. Perhaps your frustration is pointing in the wrong direction? Tom -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l