Performance Issues for SQL views with Long Field

Hi all,

I've been having performance issues with a SQL view containing a long field.

The SQL view has many other fields - and this particular field has 300 as the length. The underlying SQL text selects data from a DESCRLONG field. Now, if I use a SUBSTR to fetch just 300 characters from DESCRLONG, it takes too long for the query to complete execution. Also, a DESC on the SQL view shows the column as a CLOB. So, if I replace the corresponding SQL text  with DBMS_LOB.SUBSTR(DESCRLONG,300), a DESC on the SQL view returns the column type as VARCHAR 4000.