Cost-Based Oracle Fundamentals

The question, "Why isn't Oracle using my index?" must be one of the most popular (or perhaps unpopular) questions ever asked on the Oracle help forums. You've picked exactly the right columns, you've got them in the ideal order, you've computed statistics, you've checked for null columns—and the optimizer flatly refuses to use your index unless you hint it. What could possibly be going wrong?

If you've suffered the frustration of watching the optimizer do something completely bizarre when ...