Documented Hints available in 11.2...

As I get deeper into tuning with Statistics and the CBO I have been paying a lot more attention to hints.

In the past I always tried to avoid hints. After working with the CBO and staistics in recent versions I believe they are necessary at times to give guidance to the CBO.

The Oracle Database SQL Language Reference has a comprehensive list of hints included in the documentation of SQL Comments. The list for 11g is available here: link.

Keep in mind there are some undocumented hints floating around (MATERIALIZE and DYNAMIC_SAMPLING_EST_CDN come to mind) but getting familiar with the documented and supported parameters is not a bad idea.