Adding a Column with a Default Value and a Constraint

The Constraint Optimization series:

In the previous parts of this series I showed that Oracle does a nice optimization – that may save plenty of time – when we add in a single ALTER TABLE statement a new nullable with no default value column and a corresponding:
– inline (a.k.a. “column-level”) check constraint
or
– foreign key constraint (either inline or out-of-line)

In these cases Oracle enables the constraint (for future DML statements) and marks the constraint as VALIDATED (stating that existing records respect the constraint) without actually performing any check – counting on the fact that all the existing records have NULL in the new column. This is a beautiful optimization – if the table already contains many records, then skipping the (unnecessary) validation phase can save lots of time (during which the table is locked in a highly restrictive mode [I’ll discuss locking in the next part of this series]).

What about adding a new column with a (constant) default value?

Since all the existing records will have the same value in the new column (the default value) – then the validation phase can be very simple and short. Oracle should only check that this single value respects the constraint; there is no reason to visit each and every record in the table for repeating the same validation over and over again. Unfortunately, this kind of optimization is not done.

I added this suggestion to the OTN Database Ideas section: http://community.oracle.com/ideas/17751. Please vote up if you think it’s a good idea.

With the latest releases of Oracle, such an optimization would be valuable in particular, because as of 11g adding a NOT NULLable column with a default value is a metadata-only operation, and as of 12c the same is true also for adding a NULLable column with a default value.

Here is an example with a check constraint:

> alter table t add (c number default 8 not null constraint c_chk check(c>0));

We can see in the SQL trace file the following:

=====================
PARSING IN CURSOR #407309168 len=110 dep=1 uid=194 oct=3 lid=0 tim=745434447778 hv=3957567910 ad='7ffb3434b250' sqlid='2z018fgpy7cd6'
 select /*+ all_rows ordered dynamic_sampling(2) */ A.rowid, :1, :2, :3 from "DEMO"."T" A where not ( c>0)
END OF STMT
.
.
.
FETCH #407309168:c=781250,e=3187349,p=142858,cr=142882,cu=0,mis=0,r=0,dep=1,og=1,plh=1601196873,tim=745437636908
STAT #407309168 id=1 cnt=0 pid=0 pos=1 obj=99064 op='TABLE ACCESS FULL T (cr=142882 pr=142858 pw=0 time=3187348 us cost=38895 size=1250000 card=50000)'
CLOSE #407309168:c=0,e=3,dep=1,type=0,tim=745437636980

And here is an example with a foreign key constraint:

> alter table c add (
  parent_id number default 1 not null constraint c_fk_p references p(id)
  );

PARSING IN CURSOR #386313832 len=207 dep=1 uid=0 oct=3 lid=0 tim=747182328580 hv=3249972061 ad='7ffb09624948' sqlid='83w6f8v0vd8ux'
 select /*+ all_rows ordered dynamic_sampling(2) */ A.rowid, :1, :2, :3 
 from "DEMO"."C" A , "DEMO"."P" B 
 where( "A"."PARENT_ID" is not null) and( "B"."ID" (+)= "A"."PARENT_ID") and( "B"."ID" is null)
END OF STMT
.
.
.
FETCH #386313832:c=906250,e=3396711,p=142857,cr=142883,cu=0,mis=0,r=0,dep=1,og=1,plh=1351743368,tim=747185726213
STAT #386313832 id=1 cnt=0 pid=0 pos=1 obj=0 op='HASH JOIN ANTI (cr=142883 pr=142857 pw=0 time=3396711 us cost=40650 size=38000000 card=1000000)'
STAT #386313832 id=2 cnt=1000000 pid=1 pos=1 obj=98387 op='TABLE ACCESS FULL C (cr=142882 pr=142857 pw=0 time=616429 us cost=38895 size=25000000 card=1000000)'
STAT #386313832 id=3 cnt=1 pid=1 pos=2 obj=98386 op='INDEX FULL SCAN P_PK (cr=1 pr=0 pw=0 time=8 us cost=0 size=13 card=1)'
CLOSE #386313832:c=0,e=3,dep=1,type=0,tim=747185726320

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