Category Archives: scalar subquery caching

In previous parts i already point out that:

1. Both mechanisms are based on hash functions.
2. Deterministic caching depends on fetch size(arraysize) – results cached only within one fetch call, ssc has no this limitation.
3. Hash collisions depends on the single parameter “_query_execution_cache_max_size” for both mechanizms, but they are more frequent in SSC.
4. Oracle doesn’t keep last result of deterministic functions as it does for scalar subquery caching
5. Caching of deterministic functions results turns off after a certain number of attempts to get the value from the cache. But SSC always returns results from cache if values already cached.

Upd 2015-02-19:
A couple additions about deterministic functions:

• Deterministic functions, result_cache and operators
• How works optimization of loops in PL/SQL in 11g: Part 1. Deterministic functions

Today’s post is just addition to previous topics:

I wrote about turning caching off after many unsuccessfull attempts to get value from cache, but i didn’t say what it is the number. In fact caching of deterministic functions also depends on two another hidden parameters:

SQL> @param_ plsql%cach

NAME                                 VALUE        DEFLT    TYPE       DESCRIPTION
------------------------------------ ------------ -------- ---------- ------------------------------------------------------------------
_plsql_cache_enable                  TRUE         TRUE     boolean    PL/SQL Function Cache Enabled
_plsql_minimum_cache_hit_percent     20           TRUE     number     plsql minimum cache hit percentage required to keep caching active

First parameter “_plsql_cache_enable” is just a parameter which enables/disables this caching mechanism.
But the second parameter – “_plsql_minimum_cache_hit_percent” – is responsible for the percentage of unsuccessful attempts which disables caching.

I will show their effects with the example from the previous post:

-- set this parameter to big value for maximizing caching:
alter session set "_query_execution_cache_max_size" = 131072;
-- log table clearing:
truncate table t_params;
-- test with percentage = 50
alter session set "_plsql_minimum_cache_hit_percent"=50;
select sum(f_deterministic(n)) fd
from
  xmltable('1 to 10000,1 to 10000'
           columns n int path '.'
          );
 
select 10000-count(count(*)) "Count of cached results"
from t_params
group by p
having count(*)>1;
/*
Count of cached results
-----------------------
                      0
*/
-- now i change cache hit percentage parameter to 0:
alter session set "_plsql_minimum_cache_hit_percent"=0;
truncate table t_params;
select sum(f_deterministic(n)) fd
from
  xmltable('1 to 10000,1 to 10000'
           columns n int path '.'
          );
 
select 10000-count(count(*)) "Count of cached results"
from t_params
group by p
having count(*)>1;
/*
Count of cached results
-----------------------
                   2039
*/