Planner not using UNIQUEness of index properly
I have a unique function index on one of my tables:
create table allWords (
wordID serial PRIMARY KEY,
word text NOT NULL
);
create unique index ix_allWords_lower on allWords (lower(word));
To my surprise, the planner does not seem to realize that only one
row can result from using this index:
=> explain analyze select * from allwords where lower(word) = 'dog';
QUERY PLAN
------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------
Index Scan using ix_allwords_lower on allwords (cost=0.00..2278.27
rows=763 width=19) (actual time=5.385..5.390 rows=1 loops=1)
Index Cond: (lower(word) = 'dog'::text)
Total runtime: 5.482 ms
(3 rows)
Oddly, it does project one row for the caseful lookup.
=> explain analyze select * from allwords where word = 'dog';
QUERY PLAN
------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------
Seq Scan on allwords (cost=0.00..3007.16 rows=1 width=19) (actual
time=76.197..303.770 rows=1 loops=1)
Filter: (word = 'dog'::text)
Total runtime: 303.858 ms
(3 rows)
It's using the index in the first query, but the bad projection seems
to screw up more complicated joins where the planner decides to use a
table scan, resulting in plans a thousand times slower (yes, I did
explain analyze). This is with a stats target of 100.
I would think UNIQUE => one row is pretty obvious - what am I
missing? (Unless it's that I'm still stuck in 7.4.) Sorry if this
is well-known - I couldn't find anything in the archives.
Thanks.
- John D. Burger
MITRE
John Burger <john@mitre.org> writes:
create unique index ix_allWords_lower on allWords (lower(word));
To my surprise, the planner does not seem to realize that only one
row can result from using this index:
I would think UNIQUE => one row is pretty obvious - what am I
missing? (Unless it's that I'm still stuck in 7.4.)
That would be the problem :-( ... a look at the code suggests that the
ability to do anything intelligent with expression indexes was added
in 8.0.
regards, tom lane
On Dec 10, 2007 9:32 AM, John Burger <john@mitre.org> wrote:
I have a unique function index on one of my tables:
create table allWords (
wordID serial PRIMARY KEY,
word text NOT NULL
);
create unique index ix_allWords_lower on allWords (lower(word));To my surprise, the planner does not seem to realize that only one
row can result from using this index:
that's certainly not what I'm seeing in pgsql 8.2.5 here.
I'm guessing it has to do with being stuck on 7.4. I found a LOT of
cases where 8.2.5 handles index conditions smarter than 7.4 did. For
instance this:
select * from table where timestampfield between now() - interval '1
day' and now()
will always generate a seq scan in 7.4 regardless of indexes. In 8.1
and 8.2 pgsql knows how to use an index.
Tom Lane wrote:
I would think UNIQUE => one row is pretty obvious - what am I
missing? (Unless it's that I'm still stuck in 7.4.)That would be the problem :-( ... a look at the code suggests that the
ability to do anything intelligent with expression indexes was added
in 8.0.
Whaa. Okay, more ammunition, thanks.
- John D. Burger
MITRE