CURSOR_SHARING

Property	Description
Parameter type	String
Syntax	CURSOR_SHARING = { SIMILAR | EXACT | FORCE }
Default value	EXACT
Modifiable	ALTER SESSION, ALTER SYSTEM
Basic	No

CURSOR_SHARING determines what kind of SQL statements can share the same cursors.

Values:

· FORCE

Forces statements that may differ in some literals, but are otherwise identical, to share a cursor, unless the literals affect the meaning of the statement.

· SIMILAR

Causes statements that may differ in some literals, but are otherwise identical, to share a cursor, unless the literals affect either the meaning of the statement or the degree to which the plan is optimized.

· EXACT

Only allows statements with identical text to share the same cursor.

Note:

1. Forcing cursor sharing among similar (but not identical) statements can have unexpected results in some DSS applications, or applications that use stored outlines.

2. This parameter was introduced in Oracle 8.1.6. In Oracle8i the allowed parameter values are only EXACT or FORCE. SIMILAR is introduced as a value in Oracle9i.

3. Forcing cursor sharing among similar (but not identical) statements can have unexpected results in some DSS applications and in applications using stored outlines.

4. Setting CURSOR_SHARING to FORCE causes an increase in the maximum lengths (as returned by DESCRIBE) of any selected expressions that contain literals (in a SELECT statement). However, the actual length of the data returned will not change.

5. Query for the current value of the parameter

select name, value, isdefault, isses_modifiable, issys_modifiable,

isinstance_modifiable, isdeprecated, description

from v$parameter where upper(name) = ‘CURSOR_SHARING’;

NAME	VALUE	IS DEFAULT	ISSES_ MODIFIABLE	ISSYS_ MODIFIABLE	ISINSTANCE_ MODIFIABLE	IS DEPRECATED	DESCRIPTION
cursor_sharing	EXACT	TRUE	TRUE	IMMEDIATE	TRUE	FALSE	cursor sharing mode

Oracle initializatoin parameters