Why not use dbms_xplan.display in 9 and 10g ?

SQL> set pages600
SQL> set linesize132
SQL> desc my_emp_table;
 Name                                                                     Null?    Type
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------- -------------------------------------------------
 EMPLID                                                                   NOT NULL NUMBER
 EMPNAME                                                                           VARCHAR2(20)
 GENDER                                                                            VARCHAR2(2)

SQL> select empname, gender from my_emp_table where emplid=3;

EMPNAME              GE
-------------------- --
Larry Ellison        M

SQL> explain plan for select empname, gender from my_emp_table where emplid=3;

Explained.

SQL> select * from table(dbms_xplan.display);

PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Plan hash value: 3612125637

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id  | Operation         | Name         | Rows  | Bytes | Cost (%CPU)| Time     |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|   0 | SELECT STATEMENT  |              |     1 |    19 |     3   (0)| 00:00:01 |
|*  1 |  TABLE ACCESS FULL| MY_EMP_TABLE |     1 |    19 |     3   (0)| 00:00:01 |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------

   1 - filter("EMPLID"=3)

13 rows selected.

SQL>