Abstract: A method and system for optimizing the execution of database statements are described. An aspect is directed to the generation of an execution plan for a database statement, wherein the database statement contains a predicate having one or more arguments whose values are not known at the time the execution plan is generated (e.g., at compile time). A feature of this aspect involves passing a description of the argument(s) to the optimizer. An example of such a description includes the argument type of the predicate argument.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for inserting sorted data into an indexed table is provided. Two or more nodes are used to insert the data into the indexed table. Before an entry for each inserted row is stored in the index associated with the table, the key values in the index entry are transformed using an operation that affects the order of the key values. For example, the order of the bytes used to represent the key values in the index entry may be reversed. The index entries are stored in the portion of the index that corresponds to the transformed key values. As a result, the entries for consecutive key values will not necessarily be stored in the same portion of the index. Consequently, the nodes will not have to compete for a "hot" portion of an index if the nodes are inserting data with key values that fall into the same approximate range. The inverse of the transformation operation is performed on the transformed key values read from the index before the key values are supplied to the user.