In this chapter, you will
Be introduced to SQL tuning
See SQL tuning tips that you can use to shorten the length of time your queries take to execute
Learn about the Oracle optimizer
See how to compare the cost of performing queries
Examine how to pass hints to the optimizer
Learn about some additional tuning tools
One of the main strengths of SQL is that you don t have to tell the database exactly how to obtain the data requested . You simply issue a query specifying the information you want, and the database software figures out the best way to get it. Sometimes, you can improve the performance of your SQL statements by tuning them. In the following sections, you ll see tuning tips that can make your queries run faster; later, you ll see more advanced tuning techniques.