Check about improvement concerning 11G, this is the key. I’ve found that behavior is call “Fine grained dependency tracking”.

While certain things require view to be invalidated, somes do not. For example with DDL “ADD COLUMN” :
count(*), select *, select col1 (must exist before the add). And so on.

Check this one http://laurentschneider.com/wordpress/2006/10/11g-new-features.html

I quote Laurent Schneider :
”
Fine grained dependency tracking. Currently, if you have a view or a function based on a table, and if you modify that table, the view is getting invalid. This is what Bryn called : aggressive object invalidation. Now in 11g it has improved, so if you modify an element of the table which is not included in that view (ex: you add a column), the view is not invalidated. This is wise.
”

Regards,

Virgile CREVON

SQL*Plus: Release 10.2.0.3.0 – Production on Thu Oct 4 17:38:11 2007

Copyright (c) 1982, 2006, Oracle. All Rights Reserved.

Connected to:
Oracle Database 10g Enterprise Edition Release 10.2.0.3.0 – 64bit Production
With the Partitioning, OLAP and Data Mining options

SQL>
SQL> — create simple table
SQL>
SQL> create table gg(
2 col1 number);

Table created.

SQL>
SQL> — create two distinct views of this table as below :
SQL> — gg_v1 makes use of a count(1)
SQL> — gg_v2 makes use of a count(*)
SQL>
SQL> create view gg_v1 as
2 select count(1) num from gg;

View created.

SQL>
SQL> create view gg_v2 as
2 select count(*) num from gg;

View created.

SQL>
SQL> — check that these two views are valid.
SQL>
SQL> col object_name format a10
SQL> col object_type format a5
SQL> col status format a8
SQL>
SQL> select object_name, object_type, status
2 from user_objects
3 where (object_name=’GG_V1′
4 or object_name=’GG_V2′)
5 and object_type = ‘VIEW’
6 order by object_name, object_type;

OBJECT_NAM OBJEC STATUS
———- —– ——–
GG_V1 VIEW VALID
GG_V2 VIEW VALID

SQL>
SQL> — And then add a column:
SQL>
SQL> alter table gg add (col2 number);

Table altered.

SQL>
SQL> — 2. Display the result
SQL>
SQL> — The query below displays the status of the two views after the change on the table:
SQL>
SQL> col object_name format a10
SQL> col object_type format a5
SQL> col status format a8
SQL>
SQL> select object_name, object_type, status
2 from user_objects
3 where (object_name=’GG_V1′
4 or object_name=’GG_V2′)
5 and object_type = ‘VIEW’
6 order by object_name, object_type;

OBJECT_NAM OBJEC STATUS
———- —– ——–
GG_V1 VIEW INVALID
GG_V2 VIEW INVALID

SQL>
SQL>
SQL> drop table gg;

Table dropped.

SQL>
SQL> drop view gg_v1;

View dropped.

SQL>
SQL> drop view gg_v2;

View dropped.

SQL>