What are bind variables and why are they important?

What are bind variables and why are they important?

With bind variables in SQL, Oracle can cache related queries a single time in the SQL cache (area). This avoids a hard parse each time, which saves on various locking and latching resources we use to check objects existence and so on. BONUS: For rarely run queries, especially BATCH queries, we explicitly DO NOT want to use bind variables, as they hide information from the Cost Based Optimizer.