Index access vs Ignored hints

I have a question on some information that has been passed on similar threads. Specifically concerning the possibility that Oracle would never ignore a hint, if it can be used.
(I though that a hint was never guaranteed to be followed)

We have a rather large table (millions of rows), and one of the function typically has to work on a very small set of rows (few hundreds), and once in a while, several thousands. The function will select a block of rows to be processed based on a status column, where an ID column has the lowest value. The processing of the records is important for this business function.
To get the blocks of ids, we currently use something like; Select col_id
  from (select col_id from TAB where col_status='D'

         order by col_id)
 where rownum < 101;

Since we currently have an index TAB_STATUS_ID_IDX  on TAB (col_status, col_id)
could we use the following select statement instead

Select /*+ INDEX (TAB TAB_STATUS_ID_IDX) */ col_id   from TAB
 where col_status='D' and rownum < 101;

and be guaranteed the same result ?
(meaning that we would always get the lowest col_id, of ALL rows in
table TAB where col_status='D')

TIA Received on Tue Feb 15 2005 - 11:35:27 CST