Understanding DBMS_STATS.SET_*_PREFS procedures

In previous Database releases you had to use the DBMS_STATS.SET_PARM procedure to change the default value for the parameters used by the DBMS_STATS.GATHER_*_STATS procedures. The scope of any changes that were made was all subsequent operations. In Oracle Database 11g, the DBMS_STATS.SET_PARM procedure has been deprecated and it has been replaced with a set of procedures that allow you to set a preference for each parameter at a table, schema, database, and Global level. These new procedures are called DBMS_STATS.SET_*_PREFS and offer a much finer granularity of control.

However there has been some confusion around which procedure you should use when and what the hierarchy is among these procedures. In this post we hope to clear up the confusion. Lets start by looking at the list of parameters you can change using the DBMS_STAT.SET_*_PREFS procedures.

• AUTOSTATS_TARGET (SET_GLOBAL_PREFS only)
• CASCADE
• DEGREE
• ESTIMATE_PERCENT
• METHOD_OPT
• NO_INVALIDATE
• GRANULARITY
• PUBLISH
• INCREMENTAL
• STALE_PERCENT

As mentioned above there are four DBMS_STATS.SET_*_PREFS procedures.

1. SET_TABLE_PREFS


2. SET_SCHEMA_PREFS


3. SET_DATABASE_PREFS


4. SET_GLOBAL_PREFS

The DBMS_STATS.SET_TABLE_PREFS procedure allows you to change the default values of the parameters used by the DBMS_STATS.GATHER_*_STATS procedures for the specified table only.

The DBMS_STATS.SET_SCHEMA_PREFS procedure allows you to change the default values of the parameters used by the DBMS_STATS.GATHER_*_STATS procedures for all of the existing objects in the specified schema. This procedure actually calls DBMS_STATS.SET_TABLE_PREFS for each of the tables in the specified schema. Since it uses DBMS_STATS.SET_TABLE_PREFS calling this procedure will not affect any new objects created after it has been run. New objects will pick up the GLOBAL_PREF values for all parameters.

The DBMS_STATS.SET_DATABASE_PREFS procedure allows you to change the default values of the parameters used by the DBMS_STATS.GATHER_*_STATS procedures for all of the user defined schemas in the database. This procedure actually calls DBMS_STATS.SET_TABLE_PREFS for each of the tables in each of the user defined schemas. Since it uses DBMS_STATS.SET_TABLE_PREFS this procedure will not affect any new objects created after it has been run. New objects will pick up the GLOBAL_PREF values for all parameters. It is also possible to include the Oracle owned schemas (sys, system, etc) by setting the ADD_SYS parameter to TRUE.

The DBMS_STATS.SET_GLOBAL_PREFS procedure allows you to change the default values of the parameters used by the DBMS_STATS.GATHER_*_STATS procedures for any object in the database that does not have an existing table preference. All parameters default to the global setting unless there is a table preference set or the parameter is explicitly set in the DBMS_STATS.GATHER_*_STATS command. Changes made by this procedure will affect any new objects created after it has been run as new objects will pick up the GLOBAL_PREF values for all parameters.

With GLOBAL_PREFS it is also possible to set a default value for one additional parameter, called AUTOSTAT_TARGET. This additional parameter controls what objects the automatic statistic gathering job (that runs in the nightly maintenance window) will look after. The possible values for this parameter are ALL,ORACLE, and AUTO. ALL means the automatic statistics gathering job will gather statistics on all objects in the database. ORACLE means that the automatic statistics gathering job will only gather statistics for Oracle owned schemas (sys, sytem, etc) Finally AUTO (the default) means Oracle will decide what objects to gather statistics on. Currently AUTO and ALL behave the same.

In summary, DBMS_STATS obeys the following hierarchy for parameter values, parameters values set in the DBMS_STAT.GATHER*_STATS command over rules everything. If the parameter has not been set in the command we check for a table level preference. If there is no table preference set we use the global preference.