International Oracle Users Group

Live 2004
Quick Tip #10:
Tuning PL/SQL procedures
using DBMS_PROFILER
Tim Gorman
Principal - SageLogix, Inc.

Email: tim@sagelogix.com
www.SageLogix.Com
 Agenda
• Overview of tuning tools in Oracle
– Tuning SQL
– SQL Trace
–TKPROF
–Oracle Trace Analyzer
–Hotsos Profiler (www.hotsos.com)
–UB Tools Analyzer (www.ubtools.com)
– Tuning PL/SQL
– DBMS_PROFILER
 Overview of performance tuning

• In order to improve anything, you have to

measure it
– Is it processing?
– If so, what exactly is it doing?

– Is it waiting on something?
– If so, what exactly is it waiting for?

• Performance tuning is not an art, but a

science
– The right tool for the job is the key
 Understanding where time is spent
User Web server App server DB Server Wait Event

SQL*Net
message from
client (wait)

CPU (service)
User db file
sequential read
Response (wait)
Time CPU (service)

SQL*Net
message from
client (wait)
 Measuring time
• Tracing
– Tracing is the recording of actions performed by a
program, as they are performed
• Oracle SQL tracing
– Event 10046
– alter session set events ‘10046 trace name context
forever, level 8’
– exec dbms_support.start_trace
– New book “Optimizing Oracle Performance” by Cary
Millsap and Jeff Holt (O’Reilly & Associates, Sep 2003)
– ISBN #059600527X
 Summarizing trace data
• Recording every action performed by a program
generates huge volumes of data to analyze
– Forest and trees
– Look at the trees for diagnosing failures
– Look at the forest to tune performance
• Application profiling
– “C” programs: UNIX “prof”
– Java programs: EJP on http://www.sourceforge.net
– Commercial products from http://www.semdesigns.com
– profilers for Java, C#, C++, C, COBOL, other languages
– TKPROF for SQL trace data
• Profiling is the summarization of trace data
 Profiling

• Using the UNIX “prof” utility as an example:

– Compile a “C” program using the “-p” option to
the “cc” compiler command
– When compiled/linked program is executed,
trace information is output to a file specified
by $PROFDIR environment variable (default
is “./mon.out”)
– UNIX “prof” utility then reads trace information
and produces a summarized “profile report”
which summarizes:
– Number of calls to functions
– Amount of time spent in each function
 Profiling

• SQL Trace is another example

– SQL trace is enabled on a session
– All SQL statements executed in that session
dump trace information to a “.trc” file in
USER_DUMP_DEST
– TKPROF program simply reads information in
the “.trc” file and summarizes it, displaying:
– Execution counts
– CPU and elapsed times
– Number of physical, logical I/O
– Number of rows fetched
 What if the problem is not SQL?

• SQL statements perform work in the database

– Summarizing SQL trace info is the best tool for
tuning SQL
• What if the performance problem was in:
– The network? Operating system? DB instance?
– Database wait events can help
– An application program, such as:
– Java, C#, C++, C, COBOL, Fortran, Lisp?
– PL/SQL?
 DBMS_PROFILER

• Introduced with Oracle8i

• Not installed with typical installation
– Some files in “$ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/admin”
– Documented in MetaLink note #243755.1
– Download “prof.zip” from MetaLink
– “Oracle PL/SQL Supplied Packages” reference on
“DBMS_PROFILER”
• Generates trace data in PL/SQL programs
– Trace data saved to tables in database
– SQL*Plus script produces summarized “profile
report” as HTML

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 DBMS_PROFILER

• Files found in “$ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/admin”

• SQL*Plus script “profload.sql” creates the package
DBMS_PROFILER
– Run once for global setup on database
– Must be performed by SYS user
– Also validates package after creation
• SQL*Plus script “proftab.sql” creates tables to
store trace data
– Create private sets of tables for each user
– Each user has the three tables and single sequence
– Create a “global set” of tables for all users
– DBA is responsible for granting appropriate
permissions and creating synonyms for the three
tables and the single sequence
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 DBMS_PROFILER

• Important extra files provided in “prof.zip”

– SQL*Plus script “profiler.sql”
– Queries data generated by runs of the
DBMS_PROFILER package
– Generates HTML profiler report as output
– SQL*Plus script “profgsrc.sql”
– Extracts the source of a stored package,
procedure, or function to an ASCII text file for
editing
–So that DBMS_PROFILER procedures can
be added to that source code…

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 Using DBMS_PROFILER

• Initial setup:
– DBMS_PROFILER package has been created by
the DBA using “profload.sql”…
– developer/user has created the tables using
“proftab.sql”
• Add profiler procedures to PL/SQL source
– Procedure START_PROFILER(‘run-comment’)
– Procedure STOP_PROFILER
• Recompile and run the procedure

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 Using DBMS_PROFILER

• After running an instrumented PL/SQL

program:
– Execute the SQL*Plus script “profiler.sql”
– It will display each session’s RUN-ID, a
timestamp, and the RUN-COMMENT
– Choose the appropriate RUN-ID
– Produces spooled output to a file named
“profiler_<RUNID>.html”

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 Case Study #1

• A PL/SQL procedure named PROFTEST1

– It queries data from a table
– Stores the data in a comma-separated string
– Then, repeatedly parses and displays each item
in the string
• There are (at least) two ways to call the
INSTR() function:
– instr(string, ‘,’, 1, n)
– instr(string, ‘,’, x, 1)
– Which is faster??? Is there a difference?

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 Case Study #1
• Files:
– proftest1.sql
– DDL to create stored procedure and table
–Including use of DBMS_PROFILER
– run_proftest1.sql
– SQL*Plus script to run the test
– proftest1.tkp
– Output from tkprof <trc-file> <tkp-file>
sort=prsela,exeela,fchela explain=<un>/<pwd>
– proftest1_18.html
– proftest1_19.html

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 Case Study #1

• No real surprise when you think about it

– But using “instr(string, pattern, m, n)” is faster
– But THAT MUCH FASTER???

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 Case Study #2

• Script to estimate the number of rows per

block
– Originally written for Oracle v6
– Adapted to Oracle7 without modification
– New ROWID formats in v8+ forced changes to
the script
• Started using DBMS_ROWID package in
query
– Extremely slow

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 Case Study #2

• DBMS_PROFILER does not affect PL/SQL

modules called within SQL statements
– Unless they are instrumented themselves with
START/STOP_PROFILER
• The resolution of replacing DBMS_ROWID
package calls with SUBSTR was easily
determined using SQL Trace and TKPROF
– But DBMS_PROFILER provided some
corroboration, at least… :-)

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 Quick Tip #Q10
Q&A

Slides and scripts will be posted on

http://www.SageLogix.com
and
http://www.EvDBT.com

Email: tim@sagelogix.com
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