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Non-negligible execution plan difference with Oracle when using jdbc Timestamp or Date

Asked 2011-07-07T14:58:09.357
13

I'm analysing Oracle execution plans and found an astonishing fact. Check out this query. The hint is just to display that I have an index and I'd expect Oracle to use it for range scans:

// execute_at is of type DATE.
PreparedStatement stmt = connection.prepareStatement(
    "SELECT /*+ index(my_table my_index) */ * " + 
    "FROM my_table " +
    "WHERE execute_at > ? AND execute_at < ?");

These two bindings result in entirely different behaviour (to exclude bind variable peeking issues, I actually enforced two hard-parses):

// 1. with timestamps
stmt.setTimestamp(1, start);
stmt.setTimestamp(2, end);

// 2. with dates
stmt.setDate(1, start);
stmt.setDate(2, end);

1) With timestamps, I get an INDEX FULL SCAN and thus a filter predicate

--------------------------------------------------------------
| Id  | Operation                    | Name                  |
--------------------------------------------------------------
|   0 | SELECT STATEMENT             |                       |
|*  1 |  FILTER                      |                       |
|   2 |   TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID| my_table              |
|*  3 |    INDEX FULL SCAN           | my_index              |
--------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
   1 - filter(:1<:2)"
   3 - filter((INTERNAL_FUNCTION(""EXECUTE_AT"")>:1 AND 
               INTERNAL_FUNCTION(""EXECUTE_AT"")<:2))

2) With dates, I get the much better INDEX RANGE SCAN and an access predicate

--------------------------------------------------------------
| Id  | Operation                    | Name                  |
--------------------------------------------------------------
|
oracle-database jdbc timestamp sql-execution-plan
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1 Answer

16

So the thing is, Oracle timestamps and Oracle dates are two different datatypes. In order to compare a timestamp to a date Oracle has to run a conversion - that INTERNAL_FUNCTION(). The interesting design decision is that Oracle converts the table column rather than the passed value, which means the query no longer uses the index.

I have been able to reproduce your scenario in SQL*Plus, so it's not a problem with using java.sql.Timestamp. Casting the passed timestamps to dates does resolve the problem...

SQL> explain plan for
  2      select * from test1
  3      where d1 > cast(to_timestamp('01-MAY-2011 00:00:00.000', 'DD-MON-YYYY Hh24:MI:SS.FF') as date)
  4       and d2 > cast(to_timestamp('01-JUN-2011 23:59:59.999', 'DD-MON-YYYY Hh24:MI:SS.FF') as date)
  5  /

Explained.

SQL> select * from table(dbms_xplan.display)
  2  /

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
-----------------------------------------------------------
Plan hash value: 1531258174

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id  | Operation                   | Name  | Rows  | Bytes | Cost (%CPU)| Time     |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|   0 | SELECT STATEMENT            |       |    25 |   500 |     3   (0)| 00:00:01 |
|   1 |  TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID| TEST1 |    25 |   500 |     3   (0)| 00:00:01 |
|*  2 |   INDEX RANGE SCAN          | T1_I  |     1 |       |     2   (0)| 00:00:01 |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------    
   2 - access("D1">CAST(TO_TIMESTAMP('01-MAY-2011 00:00:00.000','DD-MON-YYYY
              Hh24:MI:SS.FF') AS date) AND "D2">CAST(TO_TIMESTAMP('01-JUN-2011
              23:59:59.999','DD-MON-YYYY Hh24:MI:SS.FF') AS date) AND "D
answered 2011-07-07T17:12:04.170

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