Oracle reports problem with user parameter 1

[lizmorgan]

I have a query which uses an input date passed in to the report as a user parameter, _input_date, with an initial value of '31-Mar-07'. This query takes two hours to run in Oracle reports but only 30 seconds in Toad. If I hard code the input date in the Oracle Reports Data Model select query to '31-Mar-07' then the report takes less than a minute to run. What I want to know is why does using the user parameters make such a difference to the performance, and what can I do to improve it?

 

[lizmorgan]

Have discovered that Oracle reports has issues dealing with dates and if this date is passed in as a varchar2 and converted in the sql then performance is not comprimised.