When does Oracle index null column values?

Question

I used to think that Oracle does not index a row when one of the column values is null.

Some simple experimentation shows this to be not the case. I was able to run

Answer 1

And in addition to APC's answer: when you want to index a NULL value, you can add a constant expression to the index.

Example:

SQL> select * from v$version where rownum = 1
  2  /

BANNER
----------------------------------------------------------------
Oracle Database 10g Enterprise Edition Release 10.2.0.4.0 - 64bi

1 rij is geselecteerd.

SQL> create table t (id,status,fill)
  2  as
  3   select level
  4        , nullif(ceil((level-1)/1000),0)
  5        , lpad('*',1000,'*')
  6     from dual
  7  connect by level <= 10000
  8  /

Tabel is aangemaakt.

SQL> select status
  2       , count(*)
  3    from t
  4   group by status
  5  /

    STATUS   COUNT(*)
---------- ----------
         1       1000
         2       1000
         3       1000
         4       1000
         5       1000
         6       1000
         7       1000
         8       1000
         9       1000
        10        999
                    1

11 rijen zijn geselecteerd.

SQL> create index i_status on t(status)
  2  /

Index is aangemaakt.

SQL> exec dbms_stats.gather_table_stats(user,'t',cascade=>true)

PL/SQL-procedure is geslaagd.

SQL> set autotrace traceonly
SQL> select *
  2    from t
  3   where status is null
  4  /

1 rij is geselecteerd.


Uitvoeringspan
----------------------------------------------------------
   0      SELECT STATEMENT Optimizer=ALL_ROWS (Cost=201 Card=1 Bytes=1007)
   1    0   TABLE ACCESS (FULL) OF 'T' (TABLE) (Cost=201 Card=1 Bytes=1007)


Statistics
----------------------------------------------------------
          1  recursive calls
          0  db block gets
        364  consistent gets
          0  physical reads
          0  redo size
       1265  bytes sent via SQL*Net to client
        242  bytes received via SQL*Net from client
          2  SQL*Net roundtrips to/from client
          0  sorts (memory)
          0  sorts (disk)
          1  rows processed

Please note the full table scan and the 364 consistent gets.

SQL> set autotrace off
SQL> create index i_status2 on t(status,1)
  2  /

Index is aangemaakt.

SQL> set autotrace traceonly
SQL> select *
  2    from t
  3   where status is null
  4  /

1 rij is geselecteerd.


Uitvoeringspan
----------------------------------------------------------
   0      SELECT STATEMENT Optimizer=ALL_ROWS (Cost=1 Card=1 Bytes=1007)
   1    0   TABLE ACCESS (BY INDEX ROWID) OF 'T' (TABLE) (Cost=1 Card=1 Bytes=1007)
   2    1     INDEX (RANGE SCAN) OF 'I_STATUS2' (INDEX) (Cost=1 Card=1)


Statistics
----------------------------------------------------------
          1  recursive calls
          0  db block gets
          3  consistent gets
          1  physical reads
          0  redo size
       1265  bytes sent via SQL*Net to client
        242  bytes received via SQL*Net from client
          2  SQL*Net roundtrips to/from client
          0  sorts (memory)
          0  sorts (disk)
          1  rows processed

And now it uses the index and has only 3 consistent gets.

Regards, Rob.