Result cache is a powerful tool to gain performance in PL/SQL.
There are many examples on the internet that proves this, e.g. these articles on All things Oracle:
- Result Cache(1)
- Result Cache(2)
But I’m not going to talk about performance.
This article is some kind of warning.
First I’ll show you how result cache works on a normal view.
I’ll create a table, a view on this table and a function that counts the rows in the view.
SQL> create table x (field1 varchar2(1), field2 number(1));
Table created.
SQL> create or replace view vie_x as select * from x;
View created.
SQL> CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION vie_x_rowcount(p_field1 IN VARCHAR2)
RETURN NUMBER RESULT_CACHE
IS
l_return NUMBER;
BEGIN
SELECT count(*)
INTO l_return
FROM vie_x
WHERE field1 = p_field1;
RETURN l_return;
END vie_x_rowcount;
/
Function created.
SQL> insert into x(field1, field2) values('x', 1);
1 row created.
SQL> commit;
Commit complete.
These are the statistics for the result cache, just to show you we’re starting without any caching.
SQL> select name, value from v$result_cache_statistics where name in ('Create Count Success', 'Find Count', 'Invalidation Count');
NAME VALUE
------------------------------ ------------------------------
Create Count Success 0
Find Count 0
Invalidation Count 0
When we execute the function, the statistics show that there’s an entry created in the cache.
SQL> select vie_x_rowcount('x') from dual;
VIE_X_ROWCOUNT('X')
-------------------
1
SQL> select name, value from v$result_cache_statistics where name in ('Create Count Success', 'Find Count', 'Invalidation Count');
NAME VALUE
------------------------------ ------------------------------
Create Count Success 1
Find Count 0
Invalidation Count 0
When we execute the same code again, we’ll get the same result and the statistics show us that the result is found in the cache.
Good job Oracle!
SQL> select vie_x_rowcount('x') from dual;
VIE_X_ROWCOUNT('X')
-------------------
1
SQL> select name, value from v$result_cache_statistics where name in ('Create Count Success', 'Find Count', 'Invalidation Count');
NAME VALUE
------------------------------ ------------------------------
Create Count Success 1
Find Count 1
Invalidation Count 0
Let’s insert a new row in the table.
This time the statistics show us that the cache is “invalidated”, meaning the function has to be executed again to return the correct value.
SQL> insert into x values('x', 2);
1 row created.
SQL> commit;
Commit complete.
SQL> select name, value from v$result_cache_statistics where name in ('Create Count Success', 'Find Count', 'Invalidation Count');
NAME VALUE
------------------------------ ------------------------------
Create Count Success 1
Find Count 1
Invalidation Count 1
And the expected result…
SQL> select vie_x_rowcount('x') from dual;
VIE_X_ROWCOUNT('X')
-------------------
2
The Oracle database has its own data dictionary, a set of tables where it stores all information about the database and what’s in it.
Data of these tables are available through views, data dictionary views.
In the following example I’ll use the data dictionary view that holds the information on columns.
I created a function that returns the number of columns for a certain table.
SQL> CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION number_of_columns(p_table_name VARCHAR2)
RETURN NUMBER RESULT_CACHE
IS
l_return NUMBER;
BEGIN
SELECT count(*)
INTO l_return
FROM user_tab_columns
WHERE table_name = p_table_name;
RETURN l_return;
END number_of_columns;
/
Function created.
To make sure we’ll start with a clean cache, I’ll flush it using the dbms_result_cache.flush procedure.
SQL> execute dbms_result_cache.flush
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
SQL> select name, value from v$result_cache_statistics where name in ('Create Count Success', 'Find Count', 'Invalidation Count');
NAME VALUE
------------------------------ ------------------------------
Create Count Success 0
Find Count 0
Invalidation Count 0
When we execute the function, we’ll get the expected result: the function is executed and a cache entry is created.
SQL> select number_of_columns('X') from dual;
NUMBER_OF_COLUMNS('X')
----------------------
2
SQL> select name, value from v$result_cache_statistics where name in ('Create Count Success', 'Find Count', 'Invalidation Count');
NAME VALUE
------------------------------ ------------------------------
Create Count Success 1
Find Count 0
Invalidation Count 0
We can execute it again and see that the return value is retrieved from the cache.
SQL> select number_of_columns('X') from dual;
NUMBER_OF_COLUMNS('X')
----------------------
2
SQL> select name, value from v$result_cache_statistics where name in ('Create Count Success', 'Find Count', 'Invalidation Count');
NAME VALUE
------------------------------ ------------------------------
Create Count Success 1
Find Count 1
Invalidation Count 0
Let’s add a column to the table.
This should add a new row in a data dictionary table and thus in the data dictionary view we use in our function.
SQL> alter table x add (field3 date); Table altered. SQL> desc x Name Null? Type ------------------------- -------- ---------------------------- FIELD1 VARCHAR2(1) FIELD2 NUMBER(1) FIELD3 DATE
Now execute the function again.
And the result is…
SQL> select number_of_columns('X') from dual;
NUMBER_OF_COLUMNS('X')
----------------------
2
Not what we expected!
When we take a look at the result cache statistics, it shows that the cache wasn’t invalidated and the result was retrieved from the result cache.
SQL> select name, value from v$result_cache_statistics where name in ('Create Count Success', 'Find Count', 'Invalidation Count');
NAME VALUE
------------------------------ ------------------------------
Create Count Success 1
Find Count 2
Invalidation Count 0
When we flush the cash and execute the function again, we’ll get the correct result cache.
SQL> execute dbms_result_cache.flush
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
SQL> select number_of_columns('X') from dual;
NUMBER_OF_COLUMNS('X')
----------------------
3
So, it seems that the result cache isn’t invalidated on data dictionary tables.
And indeed this is what I found in the Oracle documentation:
You cannot cache results when the following objects or functions are in a query:
- Temporary tables and tables in the
SYSorSYSTEMschemas
