Create an index with a sort condition

Started by sylsauabout 20 years ago6 messagesgeneral
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#1sylsau
sylsau14@gmail.com

Hello,

I use PostgreSQL 8.1 and I would like create and index on a table's
field with a sort condition on this field.
For example, I have a table named books and I want create an index on
the fields title and id_book with an order by id_book descendant.

I know how to create the index without this condition :

create index book_index on books(id_book, title);

But, I don't know to create this index with the sort condition.
Someone has an idea ?

Thanks to help me.

Sylvain.

#2Simon Riggs
simon@2ndQuadrant.com
In reply to: sylsau (#1)
Re: Create an index with a sort condition

On Wed, 2006-03-29 at 03:14 -0800, sylsau wrote:

I use PostgreSQL 8.1 and I would like create and index on a table's
field with a sort condition on this field.
For example, I have a table named books and I want create an index on
the fields title and id_book with an order by id_book descendant.

I know how to create the index without this condition :

create index book_index on books(id_book, title);

The index is already sorted and can be scanned forwards or backwards.

Perhaps you want CLUSTER?

Best Regards, Simon Riggs

#3Jim Nasby
Jim.Nasby@BlueTreble.com
In reply to: Simon Riggs (#2)
Re: Create an index with a sort condition

On Mar 29, 2006, at 2:57 PM, Simon Riggs wrote:

On Wed, 2006-03-29 at 03:14 -0800, sylsau wrote:

I use PostgreSQL 8.1 and I would like create and index on a table's
field with a sort condition on this field.
For example, I have a table named books and I want create an index on
the fields title and id_book with an order by id_book descendant.

I know how to create the index without this condition :

create index book_index on books(id_book, title);

The index is already sorted and can be scanned forwards or backwards.

I believe he's talking about something like

CREATE INDEX books__id_title ON books(id_book, title DESC);

which of course we don't support. But you can define a custom set of
operators that work backwards and use those to define the index, and
then use them in the ORDER BY.

BTW, is there a TODO for this? Second request for it I've seen in a
week...
--
Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant jnasby@pervasive.com
Pervasive Software http://pervasive.com work: 512-231-6117
vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf cell: 512-569-9461

#4Martijn van Oosterhout
kleptog@svana.org
In reply to: Jim Nasby (#3)
Re: Create an index with a sort condition

On Mon, Apr 03, 2006 at 12:48:22PM -0400, Jim Nasby wrote:

I believe he's talking about something like

CREATE INDEX books__id_title ON books(id_book, title DESC);

which of course we don't support. But you can define a custom set of
operators that work backwards and use those to define the index, and
then use them in the ORDER BY.

BTW, is there a TODO for this? Second request for it I've seen in a
week...

Well, if COLLATE support ever gets done, it'll fix this too and be SQL
compliant to boot. Unfortunatly I havn't had much time to work on this
recently and there hasn't been much interest externally. Last time I
was bogged down by keeping up with the number of commits to the sort
code which is ofcourse intimately related to this.

One day...
--
Martijn van Oosterhout <kleptog@svana.org> http://svana.org/kleptog/

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Patent. n. Genius is 5% inspiration and 95% perspiration. A patent is a
tool for doing 5% of the work and then sitting around waiting for someone
else to do the other 95% so you can sue them.

#5Tom Lane
tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us
In reply to: Martijn van Oosterhout (#4)
Re: Create an index with a sort condition

Martijn van Oosterhout <kleptog@svana.org> writes:

[ Q about reverse-sort opclasses ]

Well, if COLLATE support ever gets done, it'll fix this too and be SQL
compliant to boot.

I keep having a nagging feeling that COLLATE is a completely
inappropriate way to deal with reverse-sort semantics for non-textual
datatypes. Still waiting to see this patch ...

regards, tom lane

#6Martijn van Oosterhout
kleptog@svana.org
In reply to: Tom Lane (#5)
Re: Create an index with a sort condition

On Tue, Apr 04, 2006 at 01:40:52AM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:

Martijn van Oosterhout <kleptog@svana.org> writes:

[ Q about reverse-sort opclasses ]

Well, if COLLATE support ever gets done, it'll fix this too and be SQL
compliant to boot.

I keep having a nagging feeling that COLLATE is a completely
inappropriate way to deal with reverse-sort semantics for non-textual
datatypes. Still waiting to see this patch ...

How so? All it does it invert the result of the comparison. If we do it
for textual types it'll work automatically for all other types too.

All the details of how it would work were described back here:
http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-hackers/2005-12/msg01121.php

The last patch unfortunatly no longer applies cleanly so you can't
really test it. If someone really wants this feature, now's the time to
pipe up.

Have a nice day,
--
Martijn van Oosterhout <kleptog@svana.org> http://svana.org/kleptog/

Show quoted text

Patent. n. Genius is 5% inspiration and 95% perspiration. A patent is a
tool for doing 5% of the work and then sitting around waiting for someone
else to do the other 95% so you can sue them.