Thanks, Mark and John, much appreciated! However, I still do not know what UncompBkts are. I have to infer that they have something to do with buckets. Uncompressed? If so, what does that mean? The numerical value is often close to the number of rows, but I do not know what the information implies. ________________________________ From: John Kanagaraj [mailto:john.kanagaraj@xxxxxxxxx] Sent: Thursday, July 27, 2006 6:03 PM To: Schultz, Charles Cc: oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: UncompBkts: what is it? (reference to 10053 trace) Charles, Oracle Applications has a standard formula to determine if a Column is worth having a Histogram: If a single value occupies 1/75th or more of the sample, and the count(*) is > 3000, then a histogram is recommended. For you OraApps DBAs out there, look at the definition of APPS.FND_STATS.CHECK_HISTOGRAM_COLS. For the others, look at 358323.1 <http://metalink.oracle.com/metalink/plsql/ml2_documents.showDocument?p_ database_id=NOT&p_id=358323.1> John Kanagaraj On 7/27/06, Schultz, Charles <sac@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: Google did not deign to tell me, so I am looking elsewhere. In somewhat related terms, is there a set mathematical formula for "data skew"? Folks talk about a "little skew" or "very skewed" data. Practically any column is going to have at least some skew, but I have to assume that there is a threshold whereby a given histogram (ie, insufficient number of buckets) is going to hurt your performance. charles schultz oracle dba aits - adsd university of illinois -- John Kanagaraj <>< DB Soft Inc Phone: 408-970-7002 (W) Fear connects you to the Negative, but Faith connects you to the Positive! I Jn 4:18 ** The opinions and facts contained in this message are entirely mine and do not reflect those of my employer or customers **