No. I am using the following to get the explain plan: select plan_table_output from table(dbms_xplan.display('PLAN_TABLE',null,'ALL')) (found it on metalink) thank you Gene Gurevich Oracle Engineering 224-405-4079 "goran bogdanovic" <goran00@xxxxxxxx To m> genegurevich@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx cc 06/20/2006 04:20 oracle-l <oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> AM Subject Re: cursor sharing Did you checked in v$sql_plan the real execution plan with CURSOR_SHARING_EXACT ? genegurevich@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote: Hi all: Can someone recommend a good article on the cursor sharing in Oracle 9. I just found a query that runs in 5 seconds with CURSOR_SHARING_EXACT and in more than 1 hour without it (cursor_sharing is set to force on the DB level) I'm trying to find out why it happens. thank you Gene Gurevich -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l