title: Are Oracle Analytic Functions costly?
body: <p>Has anyone encountered slow performance when using oracle analytic functions?  The lead() oracle analytic function was used to generate a new field in the table.  Basically, it would allow the previous row's field value to be used as the value of the current row's new field.  The explain plan indicates a full table scan is performed on the table on which the oracle analytic function was used.  </p>
  
  <p>To avoid the cost of this full table scan, I may have to just manually populate a concrete field with the previous row's value using a after insert/update trigger</p>
  
  <p>Has anyone decided not to use an oracle analytic function because of its high cost?  Should oracle analytic functions be seldom used?</p>