Getting a list of Oracle hints for SQL tuning is often difficult.

The Oracle hint list is inside the Oracle executable and you can extract the Oracle hint list easily with UNIX commands. You can use grep and strings to get them directly from the Oracle executable: strings $ORACLE_HOME/bin/oracle > hints.lst Here are categorized hint list : Optimizer Approaches

ALL_ROWS FIRST_ROWS(n) RULE

General

APPEND CACHE CURSOR_SHARING_EXACT DRIVING_SITE DYNAMIC_SAMPLING MODEL_MIN_ANALYSIS NOAPPEND NO_CACHE NO_PUSH_PRED NO_PUSH_SUBQ NO_PX_JOIN_FILTER NO_XML_QUERY_REWRITE PUSH_PRED PUSH_SUBQ PX_JOIN_FILTER QB_NAME

Access Method Hints

FULL INDEX INDEX_ASC INDEX_COMBINE INDEX_DESC INDEX_FFS INDEX_JOIN INDEX_SS INDEX_SS_ASC INDEX_SS_DESC NO_INDEX NO_INDEX_FFS

NO_INDEX_SS

Cluster Only Access Method Hints

CLUSTER HASH

Join Order

LEADING ORDERED

Join Operation

NO_USE_HASH (table1 table2) NO_USE_MERGE (table1 table2) NO_USE_NL (table1 table2) USE_HASH (table1 table2) USE_MERGE (table1 table2) USE_NL (table1 table2) USE_NL_WITH_INDEX

Parallel Execution

PARALLEL NO_PARALLEL PQ_DISTRIBUTE PARALLEL_INDEX NO_PARALLEL_INDEX

Query Transformation

FACT NO_EXPAND NO_FACT NO_QUERY_TRANSFORMATION NO_REWRITE NO_STAR_TRANSFORMATION NO_UNNEST REWRITE STAR_TRANSFORMATION UNNEST USE_CONCAT

Others

ANTIJOIN BITMAP BUFFER CARDINALITY HASH_AJ INLINE MATERIALIZE MERGE NO_ACCESS NO_BUFFER NO_MERGE NO_MONITORING NO_PUSH_GSETS NO_PUSH_JOIN_PRED NO_QKN_BUFF NO_SEMIJOIN OR_EXPAND PUSH_JOIN_PRED SEMIJOIN SEMIJOIN_DRIVER SWAP_JOIN_INPUTS USE_ANTI USE_SEMI

Undocumented Optimizer Hints

BYPASS_RECURSIVE_CHECK BYPASS_UJVC CACHE_CB CACHE_TEMP_TABLE CIV_GB COLLECTIONS_GET_REFS CPU_COSTING CUBE_GB DEREF_NO_REWRITE DML_UPDATE DOMAIN_INDEX_NO_SORT DOMAIN_INDEX_SORT DYNAMIC_SAMPLING_EST_CDN EXPAND_GSET_TO_UNION FORCE_SAMPLE_BLOCK GBY_CONC_ROLLUP GLOBAL_TABLE_HINTS HWM_BROKERED IGNORE_ON_CLAUSE IGNORE_WHERE_CLAUSE

INDEX_RRS LIKE_EXPAND LOCAL_INDEXES MV_MERGE NESTED_TABLE_GET_REFS NESTED_TABLE_SET_REFS NESTED_TABLE_SET_SETID NO_ELIMINATE NO_EXPAND_GSET_TO_UNION NO_FILTERING NO_ORDER_ROLLUPS NO_PRUNE_GSETS NO_STATS_GSETS NOCPU_COSTING OB_NAME OVERFLOW_NOMOVE PIV_GB PIV_SSF PQ_MAP PQ_NOMAP REMOTE_MAPPED RESTORE_AS_INTERVALS SAVE_AS_INTERVALS SCN_ASCENDING SELECTIVITY SKIP_EXT_OPTIMIZER SQLLDR SYS_DL_CURSOR SYS_PARALLEL_TXN SYS_RID_ORDER TIV_GB TIV_SSF USE_TTT_FOR_GSETS