IC70760: SYSSQLTRACE / ONSTAT -G HIS DOCUMENTATION MAY BE MISLEADING

APAR status

• Closed as documentation error.

Error description

• Current documentation for "onstat -g his" command and
  "syssqltrace" can be misleading.
  
  1) Fields description is not clear enough:
  
   For example:
  
  Max Time: "Total time to run the SQL statement in seconds,
  excluding any time taken by the application"
  
  What Max Time description really should contain:
  
  "Max Time is the maximum query execution time. If the same query
  was run multiple times, then it is the max time of all those
  executions."
  
  Total Time: "Total time executing this statement in seconds"
  
  What Total Time description really should contain:
  
  "Total Time is the total execution time. If the same query was
  run multiple times, then it is the cumulative of all the
  executions (in other words, it is a sum of all those times)."
  
  2) Current documentation has lack of possible scenarios with
  examples of time calculation, such as:
  
  * cursor-based statements;
  * non-cursor based statements.
  
  3) Documentation does not clearly say that, if the use of
  SQLTRACE is intended to find the longest query based on the
  times printed by 'onstat -g his', these numbers should not be
  considered blindly as one would have to know what the client is
  doing in order to be able to process the information about times
  displayed. For example, at this moment for cursor-based
  statements we calculate 'Run Time' as time difference between
  OPEN and CLOSE. So if the client would execute a sleep() between
  open and close, that would get counted too.
  

Local fix

Problem summary

• ****************************************************************
  * USERS AFFECTED:                                              *
  * All users of Informix 11.50xC7 and earlier versions.         *
  ****************************************************************
  * PROBLEM DESCRIPTION:                                         *
  * Information about SQL traces did not explain how to          *
  * calculate the Max Time.                                      *
  ****************************************************************
  * RECOMMENDATION:                                              *
  * Upgrade to Informix version 11.50.xC8 to view correct        *
  * information.                                                 *
  ****************************************************************
  

Problem conclusion

• Information about SQL traces has been updated in the 11.50xC8
  Admin Reference to explain how to Max Time is calculated.
  

Temporary fix

Comments

APAR Information

• APAR is sysrouted FROM one or more of the following:

• APAR is sysrouted TO one or more of the following:

Fix information

Applicable component levels