Adaptive Server 15.0 allows you to view query plans in XML, which you can use to build automated tools, such as the Plan Viewer in the Adaptive Server plug-in to display the query plan graphically. You can also use an XML query plan to find the last time statistics were updated for a particular table. Earlier Adaptive Server releases did this using the optdiag utility or by querying systabstats or sysstatistics.
Viewing query plans with XML is a single-step operation. As a textual representation of the query, showplan does not provide statistical information, and you need to perform an additional step to determine the last time statistics were updated by using optdiag or querying the system tables. All statistical information is available in a single location with the XML output, and because parsing XML is much simpler than parsing text, tool developers can more easily create enhanced functionality for Adaptive Server 15.0 than earlier releases.
