Speed difference between != and = operators?

Paul Caskey wrote:

This query takes 206 seconds:

SELECT t1.blah, t1.foo, t2.id
FROM t1, t2, t3
WHERE t1.SessionId = 427
AND t1.CatalogId = 22
AND t1.CatalogId = t3.CatalogId
AND t2.id = t3.SomeId
AND t2.Active != 0

If I change the last line to this, it takes 1 second:

AND t2.Active = 1

The "Active" field is 0 or 1. The query returns the same rows, either way
(about 1700 rows). There is an index on the Active field.

These two queries both take 1 second:

SELECT * FROM t2 WHERE Active = 1;
SELECT * FROM t2 WHERE Active != 0;

Any ideas? Possible bug?

My coworker adds:

Interesting note... when you change the operator the way you
said you get a completely different query plan:

Original: (Active != 0)

Nested Loop (cost=0.00..143.49 rows=1 width=20)
-> Nested Loop (cost=0.00..141.46 rows=1 width=12)
-> Seq Scan on t2 (cost=0.00..48.11 rows=1 width=4)
-> Seq Scan on t3 (cost=0.00..71.50 rows=1748 width=8)
-> Index Scan using idx1 on t3 (cost=0.00..2.02 rows=1 width=8)

Altered: (Active = 1)

Nested Loop (cost=5.06..272.65 rows=62 width=20)
-> Hash Join (cost=5.06..146.49 rows=62 width=16)
-> Seq Scan on t3 (cost=0.00..71.49 rows=1748 width=8)
-> Hash (cost=5.05..5.05 rows=4 width=8)
-> Index Scan using idx1 on t1 (cost=0.00..5.05 rows=4
width=8)
-> Index Scan using t2_pkey on t2 (cost=0.00..2.02 rows=1 width=4)

What's odd is the maximum cost is low in both cases, but is even lower in
the query than runs 200 times slower.

--
Paul Caskey paul@nmxs.com Software Engineer
New Mexico Software 5041 Indian School NE Albuquerque, NM 87110
--

Paul Caskey <paul@nmxs.com> writes:

This query takes 206 seconds:
[snip]
If I change the last line to this, it takes 1 second:

What does EXPLAIN show for these queries?

regards, tom lane