Whitespace in SQL = hard parse?

From: Karsten Farrell <kfarrell_at_belgariad.com>
Date: Thu, 06 Feb 2003 21:31:18 GMT
Message-ID: <MPG.18ac7402a50365a198968a@news.la.sbcglobal.net>

This morning I was explaining to a developer why bind variables are a good thing. That led to a discussion of how Oracle first parses any SQL to produce a hash, which it uses to determine if it had seen that particular SQL before.

I said that different white space caused a different hash and thus, a new hard parse. Then I got to thinking. It was a very long time ago that I attended an Oracle Education class (employers don't seem to be as willing to pay for education these days). But when I did attend, the instructor said that these two statements would cause a different hash:

select * from emp;
select * from emp;

The only difference is the newline after the '*' in the second example. Is it still true that these are considered "different" statements? Or does Oracle now eliminate extra whitespace prior to calculating the hash?

Just curious. And while I'm at it, let me thank all the regulars who

post to the c.d.o NGs. I learn an awful lot just lurking. I'd be afraid 
to list your names ... someone would complain because I listed another 
poster before them ... and in reality, I've learned so much from each

and every one of you. Thanks again.

-- 
/Karsten

Received on Thu Feb 06 2003 - 15:31:18 CST