All About Binds Thomas Kyte

All About Binds It’s

Agenda Performance – Is it just about sharing SQL (or is this really a parsing talk in disguise) Scalability Security Do I always want to bind? What is bind variable peeking? – Is it good or evil in disguise or a bit of both? I’m binding, but it isn’t sharing – what’s up with that? So the developers don't bind is cursor_sharing = force/similar appropriate system wide? What is the real difference between cursor_sharing = force/similar and which should we use under what circumstances?

Performance What is involved in all Parses – The “conventional” parse - syntax – Semantic check What about a hard parse – Optimization (can you spell C.P.U…) – Row Source Generation And then we can finally execute it Soft Parse is lighter weight – But it is called a “shared” pool, not “your” pool – Shared data structures have to be protected Optimization can be avoided Row Source Generation can be avoided Bind01.sql

Performance Wonder if it might affect memory utilization? Strange that count(*) is so low for that first query isn’t it. Unfortunate that sum(sharable_mem) is so high (and remember, it really is 10 times that amount) Bind02.sql

Scalability But it runs fast enough and I’ll buy more memory Does it really? – Run bind03.sql select 11/10000 from dual; 11/

Latch Algorithm Loop for I in loop try to get latch if got latch, return if I = 1 then misses=misses+1 end loop INCREMENT WAIT COUNT sleep Add WAIT TIME End loop;

More multi-user USERS NOBIND_CPU PARSE_MANY_CPU PARSE_ONCE_CPU

Security Google sql injectionsql injection Funny thing happened during my last columnlast column create or replace procedure set_udump (p_udump in varchar2) as begin execute immediate 'alter system set user_dump_dest = '''||p_udump||''' scope=memory'; end; /

Security Google sql injectionsql injection Funny thing happened during my last columnlast column create or replace procedure set_udump (p_udump in varchar2) as begin execute immediate 'alter system set user_dump_dest = '''||p_udump||''' scope=memory'; end; / begin set_udump('C:\ORA4\admin\ora4\udump2'' scope=memory utl_file_dir=''*'' scope=spfile user_dump_dest=''C:\ORA4\admin\ora4\udump2'); end;

Security Google sql injectionsql injection Funny thing happened during my last columnlast column create or replace procedure set_udump (p_udump in varchar2) as begin if ( p_udump NOT LIKE '%=%' ) then execute immediate 'alter system set user_dump_dest = '''||p_udump||''' scope=memory'; else raise_application_error(-20000,'Sorry, but for safety reasons this procedure does not allow "=" in the parameter value'); end if; end;

Do I always want to bind? Always say “Never say Never” Never say “Always” You do not want to – Over Bind – Always Bind – Why….

Do I always want to bind? Over Binding – Compulsive disorder to eradicate all literals in SQL – Brought on by taking good advice to an illogical extreme – Do we need to bind those? – Might it be a bad thing to bind those? Begin for x in ( select object_name from user_objects where object_type in ( ‘TABLE’, ‘INDEX’ )) loop …

Do I always want to bind? Always Binding – Data warehouse – no way. – When you run queries per second, yes. – When you run queries that take seconds, maybe, maybe no. Consider the frequency of the query o5,000 users running reports. Bind o50 users data mining. No Bind oOLTP. Bind oEnd of month report. Maybe No Bind. oCommon Sense, it is all about math

Do I always want to bind? Always Binding – But remember SQL Injection! – That password screen, binds – Typical queries, binds – Only the queries that need the advantage of literals during optimization! And those have to be looked at over and over “user dump dest”, it seemed so simple

Bind Variable Peeking It is good or pure evil in disguise (neither of course) Introduced in 9i Release 1 Makes the first hard parse of: Optimize as if you submitted: What are the assumptions then by the implementer of this feature. Select * from emp where empno = :X; Select * from emp where empno = 1234; bvp01.sql

Bind Variable Peeking Autotrace/Explain plan caveat with binds in general – Autotrace “lies” (explain plan “lies”) Well, not really. They just don’t have the facts – Is that the only time we cannot trust them completely? No, bvp02… bvp02.sql

Bind Variable Peeking What can you do when those assumptions don’t hold true for you in a specific case? – Don’t bind that query, that is a possibility. Do the math … – Don’t use histograms Get the “general plan” Consistent Plan, but typically not the “best” plan for all – Use your domain knowledge Input dates within the last month – use this query, else use that query Codes less than 50 – use this query, else use that query Status values of ‘A’, ‘M’ and ‘N’ …. Else…. – Cursor_sharing = similar – You can disable it – but that is like “don’t use histograms” in a system that uses binds.

I’m binding, but it isn’t sharing Many things can do that – Any environmental variables that affect the optimizer – Or security (this is why PLSQL rules) – Bind Type mismatch – Language – PLSQL compiler switches For example, lets tune with SQL_TRACE=TRUE And Look deeper at “bind mismatches” Desc v$sql_shared_cursor tune.sql Bindmis.sql

Cursor Sharing So the developers don't bind is cursor_sharing = force/similar appropriate system wide? No

Cursor Sharing Negatively Impacts Well Written Applications – They run slower even if plans do not change – We just did bind variable peeking, so we know about Over binding (this is over binding defined) Always binding (this is always binding defined) – Possible plan changes Optimizer has less information, doesn’t have the facts – Behavior Changes Don’t know column widths anymore Don’t know scale/precision anymore cs01.sql

Force/Similar Let’s take a look at – What is the real difference between cursor_sharing Force Similar – Which should we use under what circumstances? (neither! Both represent a bug in the developed code!)

Force/Similar Force is just that – All literals, without any regard to anything, will be replaced with binds – There will be probably one plan generated (all things considered the same! Remember v$sql_shared_cursor) – Consider the bind variable peeking implications Cold start, first query is id=99 Cold start, first query is id=1 Bouncing the database is my tuning tool?

Force/Similar Similar – When replacing the bind with a literal ( reversed purposely ) could change the plan… – Multiple child cursors will be developed – Each can have it’s own unique plan – Optimization will use the “best” plan – Is this better than force? Depends More child cursors Longer code path – But is does solve a little more of the problem. similar.sql

Force/Similar In Short, just say No To setting at the system level, this is an application level bug “workaround until we get it fixed for real” tool

A nswers Q uestions and