“Latch: row cache objects” wait event is gone in Oracle 21c

Oracle 21c seems to be full of little surprises. Initially appeared in the first release of Oracle 10g and one of the most frequently dealt with “Latch: row cache objects” wait event has disappeared in Oracle 21c. Recall that this latch protects row cache (aka data dictionary cache) entries from simultaneous access by several processes and is acquired before a session can modify row cache objects. Oracle 21c no longer has it:

SQL> select name from v$event_name where name like '%latch: row%';

no rows selected

SQL>

An obvious question is: if this latch is gone, then what replaced it?

To answer this question (or at least to make reasonable assumptions that will take us closer to it) let’s examine other wait events that serve similar purpose.

Firstly, recall that the row cache is made of several caches.

select cache#, parameter from v$rowcache;
--------------------------------------------
3	dc_rollback_segments
1	dc_free_extents
4	dc_used_extents
2	dc_segments
0	dc_tablespaces
5	dc_tablespace_quotas
6	dc_files
10	dc_users
8	dc_objects
17	dc_global_oids
12	dc_constraints
13	dc_sequences
16	dc_histogram_defs
54	dc_sql_prs_errors
32	kqlsubheap_object
..............................

For example, the dc_sequences cache (line 14) store sequences and associated metadata. Each cache is protected by a child latch.

Secondly, it would not make much sense to replace one latch by another. From the other hand, the cache still has to be protected by something. Therefore, it has to be something that is more lightweight than latch. This is mutex (less lightweight is a pin).

Let’s see what mutex related wait events are there in Oracle 21c.

select name from v$event_name where name like '%mutex%'
--------------------------------------------------------
SecureFile fso mutex
SecureFile htbm mutex
SecureFile lhtb mutex
row cache mutex
cursor: mutex X
cursor: mutex S
library cache: mutex X
library cache: bucket mutex X
library cache: dependency mutex X
library cache: mutex S

The row cache mutex wait event (line 6) seems very interesting in this context, doesn’t it? Apparently, this is the one that protects the row cache now.

But one question still remains: why Oracle 19c (and earlier versions as well which I haven’t checked) has both “latch: row cache objects” and “row cache mutex” wait events? An undocumented parameter could be there to dictate the protection mechanism which does not seem to be the case, as far as I’ve researched. Most probably, in this version the row cache is protected by both: partly by latches, partly by mutexes and the former is completely gone in 21c.

Posted in Oracle.

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