Expression Filter Performance Issues / Misuse?

Question

I'm currently evaluating the Expression Filter functionality for a new requirement. The basic idea of the requirement is that I have a logging table that I want to get "interesting" records from. The way I want to set it up is to exclude known, "uninteresting", records or record patterns.
So as far as an implementation I was considering a table of expressions that contained expression filter entries for the "uninteresting" records and checking this against my logging table using the EVALUATE operator and looking for a 0 result.
In my testing I wanted to return results where the EVALUTE operator is equal to 1 to see if my expressions are correct. In doing this I was experiencing significant performance issues. For example my test filter matches 72 rows out of 61657 possible entries. It took Oracle almost 10 minutes to evaluate this expression. I tried it with and without an Expression Filter index with no noticeable change in execution time. The test case and query is provided below.
Is this the right use case for Expression Filter? Am I misunderstanding how it works? What am I doing wrong?
Test Case:
Version
BANNER
Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition Release 11.2.0.1.0 - Production
PL/SQL Release 11.2.0.1.0 - Production
CORE    11.2.0.1.0      Production
TNS for 32-bit Windows: Version 11.2.0.1.0 - Production
NLSRTL Version 11.2.0.1.0 - Production
Objects & Query:
CREATE TABLE expressions( white_list VARCHAR2(200));
CREATE TABLE data
AS
SELECT OBJECT_ID
     , OWNER
     , OBJECT_NAME
     , CREATED
     , LAST_DDL_TIME
FROM   DBA_OBJECTS
BEGIN
  -- Create the empty Attribute Set --
  DBMS_EXPFIL.CREATE_ATTRIBUTE_SET('exptype');
  -- Define elementary attributes of EXF$TABLE_ALIAS type --
  DBMS_EXPFIL.ADD_ELEMENTARY_ATTRIBUTE('exptype','data',
                                        EXF$TABLE_ALIAS('test_user.data'));
END;
BEGIN
  DBMS_EXPFIL.ASSIGN_ATTRIBUTE_SET('exptype','expressions','white_list');
END;
INSERT INTO expressions(white_list) VALUES('data.owner=''TEST_USER'' AND data.created BETWEEN TO_DATE(''08/03/2010'',''MM/DD/YYYY'') AND TO_DATE(''08/05/2010'',''MM/DD/YYYY'')');
exec dbms_stats.gather_table_stats(USER,'EXPRESSIONS');
exec dbms_stats.gather_table_stats(USER,'DATA');
CREATE INDEX expIndex ON Expressions (white_list) INDEXTYPE IS EXFSYS.EXPFILTER
  PARAMETERS ('STOREATTRS (data.owner,data.object_name,data.created)
               INDEXATTRS (data.owner,data.object_name,data.created)');
SELECT /*+ gather_plan_statistics */ data.* FROM data, expressions WHERE EVALUATE(white_list,exptype.getVarchar(data.rowid)) = 1;
DROP TABLE expressions PURGE;
BEGIN
        DBMS_EXPFIL.DROP_ATTRIBUTE_SET(attr_set => 'exptype');
END;
DROP TABLE data PURGE;

Answer 1

Hi,
If you are already using the queries and are stable enough then rather than modifying query you can try other options to improve the query performance like data compression of the cube, creation of aggregates, placing cube on BIA or creating cache for the query.
Best Regards,
Prashant Vankudre.