Hi, The rightmost or the most indented and the uppermost operation is the first operation that is executed. In your case, step 5. HTH Thanks Chandra Pabba _____ From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of amonte Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2007 8:44 AM To: oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: a explain plan question Hi I have this query SELECT TUH_NVPAGINA.ID_SECCION AS ID_SECCION, TUD_FEDIA.ID_TIPO_DIA AS ID_TIPO_DIA, TUD_FEDIA.ID_MES AS ID_MES, count(distinct TUH_NVPAGINA.TX_COOKIE_SESION) CNT FROM TUH_NVPAGINA, (SELECT FE_DIA, ID_MES, ID_TIPO_DIA FROM TUD_FEDIA WHERE ID_MES = :p_f_inicio) TUD_FEDIA WHERE TUH_NVPAGINA.FE_DIA = TUD_FEDIA.FE_DIA GROUP BY TUH_NVPAGINA.ID_SECCION, TUD_FEDIA.ID_TIPO_DIA, TUD_FEDIA.ID_MES and this plan Execution Plan ---------------------------------------------------------- 0 SELECT STATEMENT Optimizer=CHOOSE (Cost=1022392 Card=934 Bytes=49502) 1 0 SORT (GROUP BY) (Cost=1022392 Card=934 Bytes=49502) 2 1 NESTED LOOPS (Cost=814767 Card=182275095 Bytes=9660580035) 3 2 TABLE ACCESS (FULL) OF 'TUD_FEDIA' (Cost=3 Card=30 Bytes=480) 4 2 PARTITION RANGE (ITERATOR) 5 4 TABLE ACCESS (FULL) OF 'TUH_NVPAGINA' (Cost=27159 Card=5992606 Bytes=221726422) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------- | Id | Operation | Name | Rows | Bytes | Cost | Pstart| Pstop | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------- | 0 | SELECT STATEMENT | | 934 | 49502 | 1022K| | | | 1 | SORT GROUP BY | | 934 | 49502 | 1022K| | | | 2 | NESTED LOOPS | | 182M| 9213M| 814K| | | |* 3 | TABLE ACCESS FULL | TUD_FEDIA | 30 | 480 | 3 | | | | 4 | PARTITION RANGE ITERATOR| | | | | KEY | KEY | |* 5 | TABLE ACCESS FULL | TUH_NVPAGINA | 5992K| 211M| 27159 | KEY | KEY | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------- Predicate Information (identified by operation id): --------------------------------------------------- 3 - filter("TUD_FEDIA"."ID_MES"=TO_NUMBER(:Z)) 5 - filter("TUH_NVPAGINA"."FE_DIA"="TUD_FEDIA"."FE_DIA") I was wondering how to read this plan, the order of steps. From old set autotrace trace exp it seems to me that step 5 is the first step? 5 4 TABLE ACCESS (FULL) OF 'TUH_NVPAGINA' (Cost=27159 Card=5992606 Bytes=221726422) Thanks Alex