While browsing through Oracle Docs, encountered with yet another new feature that Oracle has introduced in the 12c release. Starting from 12c, we can now get to know the actual query that is being executed against the database.

Let me make it simple. We create views to hide complexity; When we query a view, there is no way to get to know the expanded SQL which is being generated at runtime by resolving the view definition.

However, with Oracle Database release 12c; we can easily find, how a query is getting expanded at runtime by the database when I try to query a view. Oracle has introduced a new procedure called EXPAND_SQL_TEXT under the DBMS_UTILITY package, which makes it possible to see what is the actual query that is being executed at runtime.

Though this is not an extraordinary feature, it could be very helpful in certain scenarios like,

1. From a DBA perspective, I can now easily find which all dictionary tables get queried and how it gets queried whenever I query a dictionary view.
2. Debugging a query that has tables which are in turn views of views of views and so on.
3. Another important scenario is with respect to the VPD policies. With the help of the expanded SQL we can now easily find out the filtering condition that is being applied to a query.

Syntax:

The basic syntax for using EXPAND_SQL_TEXT procedure is as follows

DBMS_UTILITY.EXPAND_SQL_TEXT (
   input_sql_text     IN           CLOB,
   output_sql_text    OUT NOCOPY   CLOB
   );
   
-- input_sql_text = SQL query that needs to be expanded
-- output_sql_text = Expanded SQL query that is resulted by resolving the views   

Demonstration

Lets see an examples, as to how the procedure expands a given SQL query.
In this example, I am querying the v$session dictionary view.

sys@LABDB> declare
  2  expand_sql clob;
  3  begin
  4  dbms_utility.expand_sql_text (
  5  input_sql_text  => 'select sid,serial#,username,status,event from v$session',
  6  output_sql_text => expand_sql
  7  );
  8  DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line(expand_sql);
  9  end;
 10  /
SELECT "A1"."SID" "SID","A1"."SERIAL#" "SERIAL#","A1"."USERNAME" "USERNAME","A1"."STATUS"
"STATUS","A1"."EVENT" "EVENT" FROM  (SELECT "A2"."SID" "SID","A2"."SERIAL#"
"SERIAL#","A2"."USERNAME" "USERNAME","A2"."STATUS" "STATUS","A2"."EVENT" "EVENT" FROM  (SELECT
"A5"."INST_ID" "INST_ID","A5"."INDX" "SID","A5"."KSUSESER" "SERIAL#","A5"."KSUUDLNA"
"USERNAME",DECODE(BITAND("A5"."KSUSEIDL",11),1,'ACTIVE',0,DECODE(BITAND("A5"."KSUSEFLG",4096),0,'INA
CTIVE','CACHED'),2,'SNIPED',3,'SNIPED','KILLED') "STATUS","A4"."KSLEDNAM" "EVENT" FROM SYS."X$KSUSE"
"A5",SYS."X$KSLED" "A4",SYS."X$KSLWT" "A3" WHERE BITAND("A5"."KSSPAFLG",1)<>0 AND
BITAND("A5"."KSUSEFLG",1)<>0 AND "A5"."INDX"="A3"."KSLWTSID" AND "A3"."KSLWTEVT"="A4"."INDX") "A2"
WHERE "A2"."INST_ID"=USERENV('INSTANCE')) "A1"

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

As we can see, we are presented with the expanded query (actual query) which actually queries the SYS.X$KSUSE, SYS.X$KSLED and SYS.X$KSLWT dictionary tables (hidden under the v$session view).

However, the expanded query generated by EXPAND_SQL_TEXT would not be properly formatted. We need to manually format the expanded query for a better readability. A formatted version of the above expanded query would look something as follows

SELECT 
	A1.SID SID,
	A1.SERIAL# SERIAL#,
	A1.USERNAME USERNAME,
	A1.STATUS STATUS,
	A1.EVENT EVENT
FROM  
	(
	SELECT 
		A2.SID SID,
		A2.SERIAL# SERIAL#,
		A2.USERNAME USERNAME,
		A2.STATUS STATUS,
		A2.EVENT EVENT 
	FROM
		(
		SELECT
			A5.INST_ID INST_ID,
			A5.INDX SID,
			A5.KSUSESER SERIAL#,
			A5.KSUUDLNA USERNAME,
			DECODE(BITAND(A5.KSUSEIDL,11),1,'ACTIVE',0,
			DECODE(BITAND(A5.KSUSEFLG,4096),0,'INACTIVE','CACHED'),2,'SNIPED',3,'SNIPED','KILLED') STATUS,
			A4.KSLEDNAM EVENT
		FROM 
			SYS.X$KSUSE A5,
			SYS.X$KSLED A4,
			SYS.X$KSLWT A3 
		WHERE 
			BITAND(A5.KSSPAFLG,1)<>0 
			AND BITAND(A5.KSUSEFLG,1)<>0 
			AND A5.INDX=A3.KSLWTSID 
			AND A3.KSLWTEVT=A4.INDX) A2
	WHERE 
		A2.INST_ID=USERENV('INSTANCE')
	) A1

Reference:

EXPAND_SQL_TEXT
12c – SQL Text Expansion