query not using index

Started by Greg Janéealmost 19 years ago3 messagesgeneral
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#1Greg Janée
gjanee@alexandria.ucsb.edu

Hi, Postgres is refusing to use a GIST index on a spatial column.
Here's the table and column and index:

Table "public.scene"
Column | Type | Modifiers
---------------------+-------------------------+-----------
...
footprint | geometry | not null
Indexes:
...
"idxscenefootprint" gist (footprint)

Index "public.idxscenefootprint"
Column | Type
-----------+-------
footprint | box2d
gist, for table "public.scene"

This table has about 8,000,000 rows. Note in the following that even
when I disable sequential scans, it still does a sequential scan!

db=> explain analyze SELECT * FROM scene A WHERE A.footprint && box
'((-120.1, 34.3), (-119.7, 34.4))' ;
QUERY PLAN
------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------
Seq Scan on scene a (cost=0.00..369700.89 rows=42196 width=252)
(actual time=50.064..47748.609 rows=507 loops=1)
Filter: ((footprint)::box && '(-119.7,34.4),(-120.1,34.3)'::box)
Total runtime: 47749.094 ms
(3 rows)

db=> set enable_seqscan = off;
SET
db=> explain analyze SELECT * FROM scene A WHERE A.footprint && box
'((-120.1, 34.3), (-119.7, 34.4))' ;
QUERY PLAN
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------
Seq Scan on scene a (cost=100000000.00..100369700.89 rows=42196
width=252) (actual time=47.405..48250.899 rows=507 loops=1)
Filter: ((footprint)::box && '(-119.7,34.4),(-120.1,34.3)'::box)
Total runtime: 48251.422 ms
(3 rows)

Also, when I look at pg_stats, there's no histogram for the footprint
column (and this is right after I did an analyze):

db=> select * from pg_stats where tablename='scene' and  
attname='footprint';
schemaname | tablename |  attname  | null_frac | avg_width |  
n_distinct | most_common_vals | most_common_freqs | histogram_bounds  
| correlation
------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+----------- 
+------------+------------------+------------------- 
+------------------+-------------
public     | scene     | footprint |         0 |       109 |          
-1 |                  |                   |                  |
(1 row)

It's as though the index didn't even exist.

I'm using PostgreSQL 8.0.3 and PostGIS 1.0.0.

Thanks,
-Greg

#2Tom Lane
tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us
In reply to: Greg Janée (#1)
Re: query not using index

=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Greg_Jan=E9e?= <gjanee@alexandria.ucsb.edu> writes:

db=> explain analyze SELECT * FROM scene A WHERE A.footprint && box
'((-120.1, 34.3), (-119.7, 34.4))' ;
QUERY PLAN
------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------
Seq Scan on scene a (cost=0.00..369700.89 rows=42196 width=252)
(actual time=50.064..47748.609 rows=507 loops=1)
Filter: ((footprint)::box && '(-119.7,34.4),(-120.1,34.3)'::box)

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Total runtime: 47749.094 ms
(3 rows)

This appears to be using the "box && box" operator. I'm not sure which
operators a GIST geometry index supports, but evidently that's not one
of them. You probably want to cast the other operand differently.
How, I dunno --- the postgis lists would be a better place to ask
than here.

regards, tom lane

#3Greg Janée
gjanee@alexandria.ucsb.edu
In reply to: Tom Lane (#2)
Re: query not using index

Thanks, that was the problem: postgres thought it had to typecast the
column to a box type, which prevented use of the index.

For any PostGIS users reading this: the solution is to express the
other operand using a GeometryFromText(...) construct.

Thanks again,
-Greg

On May 5, 2007, at 7:48 AM, Tom Lane wrote:

Show quoted text

=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Greg_Jan=E9e?= <gjanee@alexandria.ucsb.edu> writes:

db=> explain analyze SELECT * FROM scene A WHERE A.footprint && box
'((-120.1, 34.3), (-119.7, 34.4))' ;
QUERY PLAN
---------------------------------------------------------------------
---
-------------------------------------------
Seq Scan on scene a (cost=0.00..369700.89 rows=42196 width=252)
(actual time=50.064..47748.609 rows=507 loops=1)
Filter: ((footprint)::box && '(-119.7,34.4),(-120.1,34.3)'::box)

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Total runtime: 47749.094 ms
(3 rows)

This appears to be using the "box && box" operator. I'm not sure
which
operators a GIST geometry index supports, but evidently that's not one
of them. You probably want to cast the other operand differently.
How, I dunno --- the postgis lists would be a better place to ask
than here.

regards, tom lane