No. The intent is that they should be absolute directives; but there are conditions that put hints out of context, which means they become irrelevant. If it can happen at all, it can be hinted. Regards Jonathan Lewis http://www.jlcomp.demon.co.uk The Co-operative Oracle Users' FAQ http://www.jlcomp.demon.co.uk/faq/ind_faq.html March 2004 Hotsos Symposium - The Burden of Proof Dynamic Sampling - an investigation March 2004 Charlotte OUG (www.cltoug.org) CBO Tutorial April 2004 Iceland June 2004 UK - Optimising Oracle Seminar ----- Original Message ----- From: "April Wells" <AWells@xxxxxxxxxx> To: <oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Thursday, March 04, 2004 7:44 PM Subject: RE: oracle can ignore hints : : Yep, they are 'friendly suggestions' that the CBO can simply choose to : ignore if it thinks it knows better than you. : : We have one query that we have hinted, we have computed statistics, we have : built histograms, we have jumped through hoops... the only way to force it : to use an index is to Never analyze that index and to hope, then, that the : CBO makes the right assumptions. : ---------------------------------------------------------------- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe send email to: oracle-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx put 'unsubscribe' in the subject line. -- Archives are at //www.freelists.org/archives/oracle-l/ FAQ is at //www.freelists.org/help/fom-serve/cache/1.html -----------------------------------------------------------------