How to improve on insert-select query performance

Question

Hi,
Would like to get some opinion on how to improve this query inside my stored proc.
This insert stmt has run more than 4 hours for inserting around 62k records.
I have identified the bottleneck is in the function within the select stmt.
Could anyone help to finetune?
INSERT INTO STG_PRICE_OUT
(     ONPN,
     EFFECTIVE_DT,
     PRICE_CATENAME,
     QUEUE_ID
SELECT P.ONPN, P.EFFECTIVE_DT,
     gps_get_catename(P.PART_STATUS ,P.PROGRAM_CD ,P.MARKET_CD),
     '1'
FROM      PRICE P,
     GPS_INV_ITEMS GII
WHERE P.ONPN = GII.ONPN
FUNCTION Gps_Get_Catename
     p_status      VARCHAR2,
     p_pgm           VARCHAR2,
     p_market      VARCHAR2
RETURN VARCHAR2
IS
     catename VARCHAR2(30);
BEGIN
     SELECT PRICE_CATENAME
     INTO catename
     FROM PRICE_CATEGORY PC
     WHERE NVL(PC.PART_STATUS,' ')= NVL(p_status,' ')
     AND NVL(PC.PROGRAM_CD,' ') = NVL(p_pgm,' ')
     AND NVL(PC.MARKET_CD,' ') = NVL(p_market,' ')
     RETURN catename;
EXCEPTION
WHEN NO_DATA_FOUND
THEN
RETURN NULL;
WHEN OTHERS
THEN
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE('gps_get_catename: Exception caught!! (' || SQLCODE || ') : ' || SQLERRM);
     RETURN catename;
END;
STG_PRICE_OUT has around 1 mil records
GPS_INV_ITEMS has around 140K records
PRICE has around 60k records
INDEX:
STG_PRICE_OUT - INDEX 1(ONPN), INDEX2(ONPN,QUEUE_ID)
GPS_INV_ITEMS - INDEX 3(ONPN)
PRICE - INDEX 4(ONPN)
PRICE_CATEGORY - INDEX 5(PART_STATUS ,PROGRAM_CD ,MARKET_CD)
Thanks and regards,
WH

Answer 1

Only use PL/SQL when you can't do it all in SQL...
INSERT INTO STG_PRICE_OUT
( ONPN,
EFFECTIVE_DT,
PRICE_CATENAME,
QUEUE_ID
SELECT P.ONPN, P.EFFECTIVE_DT,
PC.PRICE_CATENAME,
'1'
FROM PRICE_CATEGORY PC, PRICE P,
GPS_INV_ITEMS GII
WHERE P.ONPN = GII.ONPN
AND PC.PART_STATUS(+) = P.PART_STATUS
AND PC.PROGRAM_CD(+) = P.PROGRAM_CD
AND PC.MARKET_CD(+) = P.MARKET_CD
/Cheers, APC
P.S. You may need to tweak the outer joins - I'm not quite sure what your business rule is.