No, an index fast full scan reads the index blocks in the physical order in
which they happen to be found on disk, rather than in any logical order.
Therefore you cannot make any assumptions about the lexicographical ordering of
the index keys returned.

In general, an ORDER BY clause should always be used in addition to any
"equivalent" hint, because the optimizer may legitimately choose to ignore the
hint.


-----Original Message-----
Sent: Tuesday, 29 August 2000 20:45


Does Oracle always preserve an implicit sort order when I use fast full
index scan (via hint) for a cover index.