Tool to find the execution plan of a SQL query

Question

Hi,
I new to Oracle. I come from the SQL Server world.
I would like to know what tool(s) should I use to identify the execution plan for a SQL statement and to see if a query is missing indices.
Thanks,
Paul

Answer 1

Use SQL*PLUS.
SQL> select dummy from dual;
D
X
SQL> set autotrace on explain
SQL> r
  1* select dummy from dual
D
X
Execution Plan
   0      SELECT STATEMENT Optimizer=ALL_ROWS (Cost=2 Card=1 Bytes=2)
   1    0   TABLE ACCESS (FULL) OF 'DUAL' (TABLE) (Cost=2 Card=1 Bytes
          =2)
SQL> set autot off
SQL> explain plan for select dummy from dual;
Explained.
SQL> select * from table(dbms_xplan.display);
PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
Plan hash value: 1157671242
| Id  | Operation         | Name | Rows  | Bytes | Cost (%CPU)| Time     |
|   0 | SELECT STATEMENT  |      |     1 |     2 |     2   (0)| 00:00:01 |
|   1 |  TABLE ACCESS FULL| DUAL |     1 |     2 |     2   (0)| 00:00:01 |
8 rows selected.
SQL> disconnect
Disconnected from Oracle Database 10g Enterprise Edition Release 10.1.0.2.0 - 64bit Production
With the Partitioning, Oracle Label Security, OLAP and Data Mining options
SQL>