Weird query problem after upgrade to 10g

Question

After upgrading from 9i to 10g I've noticed that one query slowed down drastically (from 100[ms] to 30[s])
SELECT ... FROM first_table LEFT OUTER JOIN second_table ON ...
WHERE first_table.number_column = '453' ...
What's weird is the redundant apostrophes around number in WHERE clause. The same query without those apostrophes executes in 100[ms].
I know it doesn't make any sense to put numbers inside apostrophes but it results from the application structure. Since I can't change the application I need the way to improve this query from the database level.
I tested this query with other databases (9i and 10g) and there is no differences whether the number is in apostrophes or not.
What does it depend on?
Any ideas how to speed-up this query?
Thanks in advance
Kunta

Answer 1

Hi Gerard,
When the query window comes from a table Oracle always recommends:
1) Use the /*+ ordered */ hint
2) Put the table the quiery window comes from (geometry-2 in the query) first in the from clause
However, your query is also written very strange. Do you know about SDO_WITHIN_DISTANCE? Or are you trying to do SDO_ANYINTERACT (since the distance is 0)?
So I would write the query you have as:
SELECT s.ROWNUM
from NOMINATIONS O, COUNTIES s
where sdo_relate(S.GEOM,o.geom, 'querytype=WINDOW mask=anyinteract')='TRUE';
or in Oracle10g:
SELECT s.ROWNUM
from NOMINATIONS O, COUNTIES s
where sdo_anyinteract(S.GEOM,o.geom)='TRUE';