Column order in indices (oracle 9.2)

Hi everybody:

I remember reading that in Oracle 9.2 and higher the order of the columns in an index does not matter.
That is oracle will be able to quickly search on a column even if it is not a leading one. I have a table
with a primary key consisting of three columns. When a table is queried based on the third column,
the data start coming out immediately, but when I use the second column the query just sits there.
Is that an expected behavior? Did I misunderstood something about the column order?

thanks for any insight

Gene Gurevich

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