Patent ID: 7203672

Claim:
A method for processing, within a database server, a database statement, the method comprising the steps of: determining that at least one subtask required by the database statement should be executed in parallel by a slave set that includes a plurality of slave processes; determining whether the database statement includes an external expression, relative to the subtask, that (a) produces information that is required by slave processes in the slave set in order to perform the subtask, and (b) is not to be evaluated by each slave process in the slave set; generating an execution plan for the database statement; associating the execution plan with a cursor; providing, to each slave process of said slave set, access to either the cursor or an equivalent cursor; if the database statement includes an external expression, then performing the steps of generating one or more external values by causing the external expression to be evaluated; and communicating the one or more external values to slave processes in the slave set to allow the slave processes of the slave set to perform respective portions of the subtask in parallel without requiring each slave of the slave set to evaluate the external expression.