Optimizer Question

[Sanjay Kumar]

Hi,   I have a column in a table which has four values namely, open, closed, active, assigned.   I would like to query that table based on that column. There are two ways of doing this.   1. Select column1, column2 from table where column1 != 'CLOSED';   2. Select column1, column2 from table where column1 IN ('OPEN','ACTIVE','ASSIGNED')   My questions are   1. Which of these two are efficient? 2. If I run this in Explain Plan, how do I compare and find out which one is efficient. (I mean which columns in the plan table do I need to observe in particular to conclude the efficiency of the query.)   Sanjay