Remember These Points

• Table access methods are used to fetch data blocks from the database objects used by a SQL statement. An access method by be sequential, as is the case with TABLE ACCESS FULL. Or, an access method could be selective, such as with the methods TABLE ACCESS BY ROWID and TABLE ACCESS CLUSTER.
• Join methods are used to join tables or interim result tables within a plan. Common examples are HASH JOIN, SORT MERGE JOIN and NESTED LOOPS JOIN.
• Table access methods may utilize index objects. Such access methods may be INDEX UNIQUE SCAN and BITMAP INDEX RANGE SCAN.
• Data operations may supplement an execution plan, with examples being SORT GROUP BY, SORT ORDER BY and FILTER.