6.2. Optimizing SELECT and Other Statements

First, one factor affects all statements: The more complex your permissions setup, the more overhead you have. Using simpler permissions when you issue GRANT statements enables MySQL to reduce permission-checking overhead when clients execute statements. For example, if you do not grant any table-level or column-level privileges, the server need not ever check the contents of the tables_priv and columns_priv tables. Similarly, if you place no resource limits on any accounts, the server does not have to perform resource counting. If you have a very high statement-processing load, it may be worth the time to use a simplified grant structure to reduce permission-checking overhead.

If your problem is with a specific MySQL expression or function, you can perform a timing test by invoking the BENCHMARK() function using the mysql client program. Its syntax is BENCHMARK(loop_count,expression). The return value is always zero, but mysql prints a line displaying approximately how long the statement took to execute. For example:

mysql> SELECT BENCHMARK(1000000,1+1);
+------------------------+
| BENCHMARK(1000000,1+1) |
+------------------------+
|                      0 |
+------------------------+
1 row in set (0.32 sec)

This result was obtained on a Pentium II 400MHz system. It shows that MySQL can execute 1,000,000 simple addition expressions in 0.32 seconds on that system.

All MySQL functions should be highly optimized, but there may be some exceptions. BENCHMARK() is an excellent tool for finding out if some function is a problem for your queries.

6.2.1. Optimizing Queries with EXPLAIN

EXPLAIN tbl_name

Or:

EXPLAIN [EXTENDED] SELECT select_options

The EXPLAIN statement can be used either as a synonym for DESCRIBE or as a way to obtain information about how MySQL executes a SELECT statement:

• EXPLAIN tbl_name is synonymous with DESCRIBE tbl_name or SHOW COLUMNS FROM tbl_name.

• When you precede a SELECT statement with the keyword EXPLAIN, MySQL displays information from the optimizer about the query execution plan. That is, MySQL explains how it would process the SELECT, including information about how tables are joined and in which order.

This section describes the second use of EXPLAIN for obtaining query execution plan information. For a description of the DESCRIBE and SHOW COLUMNS statements, see the "MySQL Language Reference."

With the help of EXPLAIN, you can see where you should add indexes to tables to get a faster SELECT that uses indexes to find rows. You can also use EXPLAIN to check whether the optimizer joins the tables in an optimal order. To force the optimizer to use a join order corresponding to the order in which the tables are named in the SELECT statement, begin the statement with SELECT STRAIGHT_JOIN rather than just SELECT.

If you have a problem with indexes not being used when you believe that they should be, you should run ANALYZE TABLE to update table statistics, such as cardinality of keys, that can affect the choices the optimizer makes.

EXPLAIN returns a row of information for each table used in the SELECT statement. The tables are listed in the output in the order that MySQL would read them while processing the query. MySQL resolves all joins using a single-sweep multi-join method. This means that MySQL reads a row from the first table, and then finds a matching row in the second table, the third table, and so on. When all tables are processed, MySQL outputs the selected columns and backtracks through the table list until a table is found for which there are more matching rows. The next row is read from this table and the process continues with the next table.

When the EXTENDED keyword is used, EXPLAIN produces extra information that can be viewed by issuing a SHOW WARNINGS statement following the EXPLAIN statement. This information displays how the optimizer qualifies table and column names in the SELECT statement, what the SELECT looks like after the application of rewriting and optimization rules, and possibly other notes about the optimization process.

Each output row from EXPLAIN provides information about one table, and each row contains the following columns:

• id

  The SELECT identifier. This is the sequential number of the SELECT within the query.

• select_type

  The type of SELECT, which can be any of those shown in the following table:

  SIMPLE	Simple SELECT (not using UNION or subqueries)
  PRIMARY	Outermost SELECT
  UNION	Second or later SELECT statement in a UNION
  DEPENDENT UNION	Second or later SELECT statement in a UNION, dependent on outer query
  UNION RESULT	Result of a UNION
  SUBQUERY	First SELECT in subquery
  DEPENDENT SUBQUERY	First SELECT in subquery, dependent on outer query
  DERIVED	Derived table SELECT (subquery in FROM clause)
  DEPENDENT typically signifies the use of a correlated subquery.

  
  

• table

  The table to which the row of output refers.

• type

  The join type. The different join types are listed here, ordered from the best type to the worst:

  • system

    The table has only one row (= system table). This is a special case of the const join type.

  • const

    The table has at most one matching row, which is read at the start of the query. Because there is only one row, values from the column in this row can be regarded as constants by the rest of the optimizer. const tables are very fast because they are read only once.

    const is used when you compare all parts of a PRIMARY KEY or UNIQUE index to constant values. In the following queries, tbl_name can be used as a const table:

    SELECT * FROM tbl_name WHERE primary_key =1;
    

    SELECT * FROM tbl_name
      WHERE primary_key_part1 =1 AND primary_key_part2 =2;
    

  • eq_ref

    One row is read from this table for each combination of rows from the previous tables. Other than the system and const types, this is the best possible join type. It is used when all parts of an index are used by the join and the index is a PRIMARY KEY or UNIQUE index.

    eq_ref can be used for indexed columns that are compared using the = operator. The comparison value can be a constant or an expression that uses columns from tables that are read before this table. In the following examples, MySQL can use an eq_ref join to process ref_table:

    SELECT * FROM ref_table,  other_table
        WHERE ref_table.key_column=other_table.column;
    
    
    SELECT * FROM ref_table,  other_table
        WHERE ref_table.key_column_part1=other_table.column
        AND ref_table.key_column_part2 =1;
    

  • ref

    All rows with matching index values are read from this table for each combination of rows from the previous tables. ref is used if the join uses only a leftmost prefix of the key or if the key is not a PRIMARY KEY or UNIQUE index (in other words, if the join cannot select a single row based on the key value). If the key that is used matches only a few rows, this is a good join type.

    ref can be used for indexed columns that are compared using the = or <=> operator. In the following examples, MySQL can use a ref join to process ref_table:

    SELECT * FROM ref_table  WHERE key_column=expr;
    
    
    SELECT * FROM ref_table,  other_table
      WHERE ref_table.key_column=other_table.column;
    
    
    SELECT * FROM ref_table,  other_table
      WHERE ref_table.key_column_part1=other_table.column
      AND ref_table.key_column_part2 =1;
    

  • ref_or_null

    This join type is like ref, but with the addition that MySQL does an extra search for rows that contain NULL values. This join type optimization is used most often in resolving subqueries. In the following examples, MySQL can use a ref_or_null join to process ref_table:

    SELECT * FROM ref_table
        WHERE key_column=expr  OR key_column  IS NULL;
    

    See Section 6.2.7, "IS NULL Optimization"

  • index_merge

    This join type indicates that the Index Merge optimization is used. In this case, the key column in the output row contains a list of indexes used, and key_len contains a list of the longest key parts for the indexes used. For more information, see Section 6.2.6, "Index Merge Optimization."

  • unique_subquery

    This type replaces ref for some IN subqueries of the following form:

    value  IN (SELECT primary_key  FROM single_table  WHERE some_expr)
    

    unique_subquery is just an index lookup function that replaces the subquery completely for better efficiency.

  • index_subquery

    This join type is similar to unique_subquery. It replaces IN subqueries, but it works for non-unique indexes in subqueries of the following form:

    value  IN (SELECT key_column  FROM single_table  WHERE some_expr)
    

  • range

    Only rows that are in a given range are retrieved, using an index to select the rows. The key column in the output row indicates which index is used. The key_len contains the longest key part that was used. The ref column is NULL for this type.

    range can be used when a key column is compared to a constant using any of the =, <>, >, >=, <, <=, IS NULL, <=>, BETWEEN, or IN operators:

     SELECT * FROM tbl_name
       WHERE key_column  = 10;
     SELECT * FROM  tbl_name
       WHERE key_column  BETWEEN 10 and 20;
    
    
     SELECT * FROM  tbl_name
       WHERE key_column  IN (10,20,30);
    
    
     SELECT * FROM  tbl_name
       WHERE key_part1= 10 AND key_part2  IN (10,20,30);
    

  • index

    This join type is the same as ALL, except that only the index tree is scanned. This usually is faster than ALL because the index file usually is smaller than the data file.

    MySQL can use this join type when the query uses only columns that are part of a single index.

  • ALL

    A full table scan is done for each combination of rows from the previous tables. This is normally not good if the table is the first table not marked const, and usually very bad in all other cases. Normally, you can avoid ALL by adding indexes that allow row retrieval from the table based on constant values or column values from earlier tables.

• possible_keys

  The possible_keys column indicates which indexes MySQL can choose from to use to find the rows in this table. Note that this column is totally independent of the order of the tables as displayed in the output from EXPLAIN. That means that some of the keys in possible_keys might not be usable in practice with the generated table order.

  If this column is NULL, there are no relevant indexes. In this case, you may be able to improve the performance of your query by examining the WHERE clause to check whether it refers to some column or columns that would be suitable for indexing. If so, create an appropriate index and check the query with EXPLAIN again.

  To see what indexes a table has, use SHOW INDEX FROM tbl_name.

• key

  The key column indicates the key (index) that MySQL actually decided to use. The key is NULL if no index was chosen. To force MySQL to use or ignore an index listed in the possible_keys column, use FORCE INDEX, USE INDEX, or IGNORE INDEX in your query.

  For MyISAM and BDB tables, running ANALYZE TABLE helps the optimizer choose better indexes. For MyISAM tables, myisamchk --analyze does the same. See Section 4.10.4, "Table Maintenance and Crash Recovery."

• key_len

  The key_len column indicates the length of the key that MySQL decided to use. The length is NULL if the key column says NULL. Note that the value of key_len enables you to determine how many parts of a multiple-part key MySQL actually uses.

• ref

  The ref column shows which columns or constants are compared to the index named in the key column to select rows from the table.

• rows

  The rows column indicates the number of rows MySQL believes it must examine to execute the query.

• Extra

  This column contains additional information about how MySQL resolves the query. Here is an explanation of the values that can appear in this column:

  • Distinct

    MySQL is looking for distinct values, so it stops searching for more rows for the current row combination after it has found the first matching row.

  • Not exists

    MySQL was able to do a LEFT JOIN optimization on the query and does not examine more rows in this table for the previous row combination after it finds one row that matches the LEFT JOIN criteria. Here is an example of the type of query that can be optimized this way:

    SELECT * FROM t1 LEFT JOIN t2 ON t1.id=t2.id
      WHERE t2.id IS NULL;
    

    Assume that t2.id is defined as NOT NULL. In this case, MySQL scans t1 and looks up the rows in t2 using the values of t1.id. If MySQL finds a matching row in t2, it knows that t2.id can never be NULL, and does not scan through the rest of the rows in t2 that have the same id value. In other words, for each row in t1, MySQL needs to do only a single lookup in t2, regardless of how many rows actually match in t2.

  • range checked for each record (index map: N)

    MySQL found no good index to use, but found that some of the indexes that might be used after column values from preceding tables are known. For each row combination in the preceding tables, MySQL checks whether it is possible to use a range or index_merge access method to retrieve rows. This is not very fast, but is faster than performing a join with no index at all. The applicability criteria are as described in Section 6.2.5, "Range Optimization," and Section 6.2.6, "Index Merge Optimization," with the exception that all column values for the preceding table are known and considered to be constants.

  • Using filesort

    MySQL must do an extra pass to find out how to retrieve the rows in sorted order. The sort is done by going through all rows according to the join type and storing the sort key and pointer to the row for all rows that match the WHERE clause. The keys then are sorted and the rows are retrieved in sorted order. See Section 6.2.12, "ORDER BY Optimization."

  • Using index

    The column information is retrieved from the table using only information in the index tree without having to do an additional seek to read the actual row. This strategy can be used when the query uses only columns that are part of a single index.

  • Using temporary

    To resolve the query, MySQL needs to create a temporary table to hold the result. This typically happens if the query contains GROUP BY and ORDER BY clauses that list columns differently.

  • Using where

    A WHERE clause is used to restrict which rows to match against the next table or send to the client. Unless you specifically intend to fetch or examine all rows from the table, you may have something wrong in your query if the Extra value is not Using where and the table join type is ALL or index.

    If you want to make your queries as fast as possible, you should look out for Extra values of Using filesort and Using temporary.

  • Using sort_union(...), Using union(...), Using intersect(...)

    These indicate how index scans are merged for the index_merge join type. See Section 6.2.6, "Index Merge Optimization," for more information.

  • Using index for group-by

    Similar to the Using index way of accessing a table, Using index for group-by indicates that MySQL found an index that can be used to retrieve all columns of a GROUP BY or DISTINCT query without any extra disk access to the actual table. Additionally, the index is used in the most efficient way so that for each group, only a few index entries are read. For details, see Section 6.2.13, "GROUP BY Optimization"

  • Using where with pushed condition

    This item applies to NDB Cluster tables only. It means that MySQL Cluster is using condition pushdown to improve the efficiency of a direct comparison ( =) between a non-indexed column and a constant. In such cases, the condition is "pushed down" to the cluster's data nodes where it is evaluated in all partitions simultaneously. This eliminates the need to send non-matching rows over the network, and can speed up such queries by a factor of 5 to 10 times over cases where condition pushdown could be but is not used.

    Suppose that you have a Cluster table defined as follows:

    CREATE TABLE t1 (
        a INT,
        b INT,
        KEY(a)
    ) ENGINE=NDBCLUSTER;
    

    In this case, condition pushdown can be used with a query such as this one:

    SELECT a,b FROM t1 WHERE b = 10;
    

    This can be seen in the output of EXPLAIN SELECT, as shown here:

    mysql> EXPLAIN SELECT a,b FROM t1 WHERE b = 10\G
    *************************** 1. row ***************************
               id: 1
      select_type: SIMPLE
            table: t1
             type: ALL
    possible_keys: NULL
              key: NULL
          key_len: NULL
              ref: NULL
             rows: 10
            Extra: Using where with pushed condition
    

    Condition pushdown cannot be used with either of these two queries:

    SELECT a,b FROM t1 WHERE a = 10;
    SELECT a,b FROM t1 WHERE b + 1 = 10;
    

    With regard to the first of these two queries, condition pushdown is not applicable because an index exists on column a. In the case of the second query, a condition pushdown cannot be employed because the comparison involving the non-indexed column b is an indirect one. (However, it would apply if you were to reduce b + 1 = 10 to b = 9 in the WHERE clause.)

    However, a condition pushdown may also be employed when an indexed column is compared with a constant using a > or < operator:

    mysql> EXPLAIN SELECT a,b FROM t1 WHERE a<2\G
    *************************** 1. row ***************************
               id: 1
      select_type: SIMPLE
            table: t1
             type: range
    possible_keys: a
              key: a
          key_len: 5
              ref: NULL
             rows: 2
            Extra: Using where with pushed condition
    

    With regard to condition pushdown, keep in mind that:

  • Condition pushdown is relevant to MySQL Cluster only, and does not occur when executing queries against tables using any other storage engine.

  • Condition pushdown capability is not used by default. To enable it, you can start mysqld with the --engine-condition-pushdown option, or execute the following statement:

    SET engine_condition_pushdown=On;
    

Condition pushdown, Using where with pushed condition, and engine_condition_ pushdown were all introduced in MySQL 5.0 Cluster.

You can get a good indication of how good a join is by taking the product of the values in the rows column of the EXPLAIN output. This should tell you roughly how many rows MySQL must examine to execute the query. If you restrict queries with the max_join_size system variable, this row product also is used to determine which multiple-table SELECT statements to execute and which to abort. See Section 6.5.2, "Tuning Server Parameters."

The following example shows how a multiple-table join can be optimized progressively based on the information provided by EXPLAIN. Suppose that you have the SELECT statement shown here and that you plan to examine it using EXPLAIN:

EXPLAIN SELECT tt.TicketNumber, tt.TimeIn,
               tt.ProjectReference, tt.EstimatedShipDate,
               tt.ActualShipDate, tt.ClientID,
               tt.ServiceCodes, tt.RepetitiveID,
               tt.CurrentProcess, tt.CurrentDPPerson,
               tt.RecordVolume, tt.DPPrinted, et.COUNTRY,
               et_1.COUNTRY, do.CUSTNAME
        FROM tt, et, et AS et_1, do
        WHERE tt.SubmitTime IS NULL
          AND tt.ActualPC = et.EMPLOYID
          AND tt.AssignedPC = et_1.EMPLOYID
          AND tt.ClientID = do.CUSTNMBR;

For this example, make the following assumptions:

• The columns being compared have been declared as follows:

  Table	Column	Data Type
  tt	ActualPC	CHAR(10)
  tt	AssignedPC	CHAR(10)
  tt	ClientID	CHAR(10)
  et	EMPLOYID	CHAR(15)
  do	CUSTNMBR	CHAR(15)

  
  

• The tables have the following indexes:

  Table	Index
  tt	ActualPC
  tt	AssignedPC
  tt	ClientID
  et	EMPLOYID (primary key)
  do	CUSTNMBR (primary key)

  
  

• The tt.ActualPC values are not evenly distributed.

Initially, before any optimizations have been performed, the EXPLAIN statement produces the following information:

table type possible_keys key  key_len ref  rows  Extra
et    ALL  PRIMARY       NULL NULL    NULL 74
do    ALL  PRIMARY       NULL NULL    NULL 2135
et_1  ALL  PRIMARY       NULL NULL    NULL 74
tt    ALL  AssignedPC,   NULL NULL    NULL 3872
           ClientID,
           ActualPC
      range checked for each record (key map: 35)

Because type is ALL for each table, this output indicates that MySQL is generating a Cartesian product of all the tables; that is, every combination of rows. This takes quite a long time, because the product of the number of rows in each table must be examined. For the case at hand, this product is 74 x 2135 x 74 x 3872 = 45,268,558,720 rows. If the tables were bigger, you can only imagine how long it would take.

One problem here is that MySQL can use indexes on columns more efficiently if they are declared as the same type and size. In this context, VARCHAR and CHAR are considered the same if they are declared as the same size. tt.ActualPC is declared as CHAR(10) and et.EMPLOYID is CHAR(15), so there is a length mismatch.

To fix this disparity between column lengths, use ALTER TABLE to lengthen ActualPC from 10 characters to 15 characters:

mysql> ALTER TABLE tt MODIFY ActualPC VARCHAR(15);

Now tt.ActualPC and et.EMPLOYID are both VARCHAR(15). Executing the EXPLAIN statement again produces this result:

table type   possible_keys key     key_len ref         rows     Extra
tt    ALL    AssignedPC,   NULL    NULL    NULL        3872     Using
             ClientID,                                          where
             ActualPC
do    ALL    PRIMARY       NULL    NULL    NULL        2135
      range checked for each record (key map: 1)
et_1  ALL    PRIMARY       NULL    NULL    NULL        74
      range checked for each record (key map: 1)
et    eq_ref PRIMARY       PRIMARY 15      tt.ActualPC 1

This is not perfect, but is much better: The product of the rows values is less by a factor of 74. This version executes in a couple of seconds.

A second alteration can be made to eliminate the column length mismatches for the tt.AssignedPC = et_1.EMPLOYID and tt.ClientID = do.CUSTNMBR comparisons:

mysql>  ALTER TABLE tt MODIFY AssignedPC VARCHAR(15),
    ->                MODIFY ClientID    VARCHAR(15);

After that modification, EXPLAIN produces the output shown here:

table type   possible_keys key      key_len ref            rows Extra
et    ALL    PRIMARY       NULL     NULL    NULL          74
tt    ref    AssignedPC,   ActualPC 15      et.EMPLOYID   52    Using
             ClientID,                                          where
             ActualPC
et_1  eq_ref PRIMARY       PRIMARY  15       tt.AssignedPC 1
do    eq_ref PRIMARY       PRIMARY  15      tt.ClientID    1

At this point, the query is optimized almost as well as possible. The remaining problem is that, by default, MySQL assumes that values in the tt.ActualPC column are evenly distributed, and that is not the case for the tt table. Fortunately, it is easy to tell MySQL to analyze the key distribution:

mysql> ANALYZE TABLE tt;

With the additional index information, the join is perfect and EXPLAIN produces this result:

table type   possible_keys key     key_len ref            rows Extra
tt    ALL    AssignedPC    NULL    NULL    NULL           3872 Using
             ClientID,                                         where
             ActualPC
et    eq_ref PRIMARY       PRIMARY 15      tt.ActualPC    1
et_1  eq_ref PRIMARY       PRIMARY 15       tt.AssignedPC 1
do    eq_ref PRIMARY       PRIMARY 15      tt.ClientID    1

Note that the rows column in the output from EXPLAIN is an educated guess from the MySQL join optimizer. You should check whether the numbers are even close to the truth by comparing the rows product with the actual number of rows that the query returns. If the numbers are quite different, you might get better performance by using STRAIGHT_JOIN in your SELECT statement and trying to list the tables in a different order in the FROM clause.

6.2.2. Estimating Query Performance

In most cases, you can estimate query performance by counting disk seeks. For small tables, you can usually find a row in one disk seek (because the index is probably cached). For bigger tables, you can estimate that, using B-tree indexes, you need this many seeks to find a row: log(row_count) / log(index_block_length / 3 x 2 / (index_length +data_pointer_length)) + 1.

In MySQL, an index block is usually 1,024 bytes and the data pointer is usually 4 bytes. For a 500,000-row table with an index length of three bytes (the size of MEDIUMINT), the formula indicates log(500,000)/log(1024/3*2/(3+4)) + 1 = 4 seeks.

This index would require storage of about 500,000 x 7 x 3/2 = 5.2MB (assuming a typical index buffer fill ratio of 2/3), so you probably have much of the index in memory and so need only one or two calls to read data to find the row.

For writes, however, you need four seek requests to find where to place a new index value and normally two seeks to update the index and write the row.

Note that the preceding discussion does not mean that your application performance slowly degenerates by log N. As long as everything is cached by the OS or the MySQL server, things become only marginally slower as the table gets bigger. After the data gets too big to be cached, things start to go much slower until your applications are bound only by disk seeks (which increase by log N). To avoid this, increase the key cache size as the data grows. For MyISAM tables, the key cache size is controlled by the key_buffer_size system variable. See Section 6.5.2, "Tuning Server Parameters."

6.2.3. Speed of SELECT Queries

In general, when you want to make a slow SELECT ... WHERE query faster, the first thing to check is whether you can add an index. All references between different tables should usually be done with indexes. You can use the EXPLAIN statement to determine which indexes are used for a SELECT. See Section 6.2.1, "Optimizing Queries with EXPLAIN," and Section 6.4.5, "How MySQL Uses Indexes"

Some general tips for speeding up queries on MyISAM tables:

• To help MySQL better optimize queries, use ANALYZE TABLE or run myisamchk --analyze on a table after it has been loaded with data. This updates a value for each index part that indicates the average number of rows that have the same value. (For unique indexes, this is always 1.) MySQL uses this to decide which index to choose when you join two tables based on a non-constant expression. You can check the result from the table analysis by using SHOW INDEX FROM tbl_name and examining the Cardinality value. myisamchk --description --verbose shows index distribution information.

• To sort an index and data according to an index, use myisamchk --sort-index --sort-records=1 (assuming that you want to sort on index 1). This is a good way to make queries faster if you have a unique index from which you want to read all rows in order according to the index. Note that the first time you sort a large table this way, it may take a long time.

6.2.4. WHERE Clause Optimization

This section discusses optimizations that can be made for processing WHERE clauses. The examples use SELECT statements, but the same optimizations apply for WHERE clauses in DELETE and UPDATE statements.

Work on the MySQL optimizer is ongoing, so this section is incomplete. MySQL performs a great many optimizations, not all of which are documented here.

Some of the optimizations performed by MySQL follow:

• Removal of unnecessary parentheses:

     ((a AND b) AND c OR (((a AND b) AND (c AND d))))
  -> (a AND b AND c) OR (a AND b AND c AND d)
  

• Constant folding:

     (a<b AND b=c) AND a=5
  -> b>5 AND b=c AND a=5
  

• Constant condition removal (needed because of constant folding):

     (B>=5 AND B=5) OR (B=6 AND 5=5) OR (B=7 AND 5=6)
  -> B=5 OR B=6
  

• Constant expressions used by indexes are evaluated only once.

• COUNT(*) on a single table without a WHERE is retrieved directly from the table information for MyISAM and MEMORY tables. This is also done for any NOT NULL expression when used with only one table.

• Early detection of invalid constant expressions. MySQL quickly detects that some

• SELECT statements are impossible and returns no rows.

• HAVING is merged with WHERE if you do not use GROUP BY or aggregate functions ( COUNT(), MIN(), and so on).

• For each table in a join, a simpler WHERE is constructed to get a fast WHERE evaluation for the table and also to skip rows as soon as possible.

• All constant tables are read first before any other tables in the query. A constant table is any of the following:

  • An empty table or a table with one row.

  • A table that is used with a WHERE clause on a PRIMARY KEY or a UNIQUE index, where all index parts are compared to constant expressions and are defined as NOT NULL.

  All of the following tables are used as constant tables:

  SELECT * FROM t WHERE primary_key=1;
  SELECT * FROM t1,t2
    WHERE t1.primary_key=1 AND t2.primary_key=t1.id;
  

• The best join combination for joining the tables is found by trying all possibilities. If all columns in ORDER BY and GROUP BY clauses come from the same table, that table is preferred first when joining.

• If there is an ORDER BY clause and a different GROUP BY clause, or if the ORDER BY or GROUP BY contains columns from tables other than the first table in the join queue, a temporary table is created.

• If you use the SQL_SMALL_RESULT option, MySQL uses an in-memory temporary table.

• Each table index is queried, and the best index is used unless the optimizer believes that it is more efficient to use a table scan. At one time, a scan was used based on whether the best index spanned more than 30% of the table, but a fixed percentage no longer determines the choice between using an index or a scan. The optimizer now is more complex and bases its estimate on additional factors such as table size, number of rows, and I/O block size.

• In some cases, MySQL can read rows from the index without even consulting the data file. If all columns used from the index are numeric, only the index tree is used to resolve the query.

• Before each row is output, those that do not match the HAVING clause are skipped.

Some examples of queries that are very fast:

SELECT COUNT(*) FROM tbl_name;

SELECT MIN(key_part1),MAX(key_part1) FROM tbl_name;

SELECT MAX(key_part2) FROM tbl_name
    WHERE key_part1=constant;

SELECT ... FROM  tbl_name
    ORDER BY key_part1,key_part2,... LIMIT 10;

SELECT ... FROM  tbl_name
    ORDER BY key_part1  DESC, key_part2  DESC, ... LIMIT 10;

MySQL resolves the following queries using only the index tree, assuming that the indexed columns are numeric:

SELECT key_part1,key_part2  FROM tbl_name  WHERE key_part1=val;

SELECT COUNT(*) FROM tbl_name
  WHERE key_part1=val1  AND key_part2=val2;

SELECT key_part2  FROM tbl_name  GROUP BY key_part1;

The following queries use indexing to retrieve the rows in sorted order without a separate sorting pass:

SELECT ... FROM  tbl_name
    ORDER BY key_part1,key_part2,... ;

SELECT ... FROM  tbl_name
    ORDER BY key_part1  DESC, key_part2  DESC, ... ;

6.2.5. Range Optimization

The range access method uses a single index to retrieve a subset of table rows that are contained within one or several index value intervals. It can be used for a single-part or multiple-part index. The following sections give a detailed description of how intervals are extracted from the WHERE clause.

6.2.5.1. The Range Access Method for Single-Part Indexes

For a single-part index, index value intervals can be conveniently represented by corresponding conditions in the WHERE clause, so we speak of range conditions rather than "intervals."

The definition of a range condition for a single-part index is as follows:

• For both BTREE and HASH indexes, comparison of a key part with a constant value is a range condition when using the =, <=>, IN, IS NULL, or IS NOT NULL operator.

• For BTREE indexes, comparison of a key part with a constant value is a range condition when using the >, <, >=, <=, BETWEEN, !=, or <> operator, or LIKE 'pattern' (where pattern' does not start with a wildcard).

• For all types of indexes, multiple range conditions combined with OR or AND form a range condition.

"Constant value" in the preceding descriptions means one of the following:

• A constant from the query string

• A column of a const or system table from the same join

• The result of an uncorrelated subquery

• Any expression composed entirely from subexpressions of the preceding types

Here are some examples of queries with range conditions in the WHERE clause:

SELECT * FROM t1
  WHERE key_col  > 1
  AND key_col  < 10;


SELECT * FROM t1
  WHERE key_col  = 1
  OR key_col  IN (15,18,20);


SELECT * FROM t1
  WHERE key_col  LIKE  ' ab%'
  OR key_col  BETWEEN  ' bar'    AND  'foo'  ;

Note that some non-constant values may be converted to constants during the constant propagation phase.

MySQL tries to extract range conditions from the WHERE clause for each of the possible indexes. During the extraction process, conditions that cannot be used for constructing the range condition are dropped, conditions that produce overlapping ranges are combined, and conditions that produce empty ranges are removed.

Consider the following statement, where key1 is an indexed column and nonkey is not indexed:

SELECT * FROM t1 WHERE
  (key1 <  'abc' AND (key1 LIKE'  abcde%    OR key1 LIKE'  %b  )) OR
  (key1 <  'bar' AND nonkey = 4) OR
  (key1 <  'uux' AND key1 > 'z' );

The extraction process for key key1 is as follows:

(key1 <  ' abc' AND (key1 LIKE '  abcde%    OR key1 LIKE '  %b  )) OR
(key1 <  ' bar' AND nonkey = 4) OR
(key1 <  ' uux' AND key1 > '  z' )

(key1 <  ' abc' AND (key1 LIKE '  abcde%    OR TRUE)) OR
(key1 <  ' bar' AND TRUE) OR
(key1 <  ' uux' AND key1 > '  z  )

(key1 < 'abc ' AND TRUE) OR (key1 <  'bar ' AND TRUE) OR (FALSE)

(key1 < 'abc') OR (key1 <  'bar')

(key1 < 'bar')

In general (and as demonstrated by the preceding example), the condition used for a range scan is less restrictive than the WHERE clause. MySQL performs an additional check to filter out rows that satisfy the range condition but not the full WHERE clause.

The range condition extraction algorithm can handle nested AND/OR constructs of arbitrary depth, and its output does not depend on the order in which conditions appear in WHERE clause.

6.2.5.2. The Range Access Method for Multiple-Part Indexes

Range conditions on a multiple-part index are an extension of range conditions for a single-part index. A range condition on a multiple-part index restricts index rows to lie within one or several key tuple intervals. Key tuple intervals are defined over a set of key tuples, using ordering from the index.

For example, consider a multiple-part index defined as key1(key_part1,key_part2,key_part3), and the following set of key tuples listed in key order:

key_part1   key_part2   key_part3
  NULL        1          'abc'
  NULL        1          'xyz'
  NULL        2          'foo'
   1          1          'abc'
   1          1          'xyz'
   1          2          'abc'
   2          1          'aaa'

The condition key_part1 = 1 defines this interval:

(1,-inf,-inf) <= ( key_part1, key_part2, key_part3) < (1,+inf,+inf)

The interval covers the 4th, 5th, and 6th tuples in the preceding data set and can be used by the range access method.

By contrast, the condition key_part3 = 'abc' does not define a single interval and cannot be used by the range access method.

The following descriptions indicate how range conditions work for multiple-part indexes in greater detail.

• For HASH indexes, each interval containing identical values can be used. This means that the interval can be produced only for conditions in the following form:

           key_part1 cmp const1
  AND key_part2 cmp const2
  AND ...
  AND key_partN cmp constN;
  

  Here, const1, const2, ... are constants, cmp is one of the =, <=>, or IS NULL comparison operators, and the conditions cover all index parts. (That is, there are N conditions, one for each part of an N-part index.) For example, the following is a range condition for a three-part HASH index:

  key_part1 = 1 AND key_part2 IS NULL AND key_part3 = 'foo'
  

  For the definition of what is considered to be a constant, see Section 6.2.5.1, "The Range Access Method for Single-Part Indexes."

• For a BTREE index, an interval might be usable for conditions combined with AND, where each condition compares a key part with a constant value using =, <=>, IS NULL, >, <, >=, <=, !=, <>, BETWEEN, or LIKE pattern' (where pattern' does not start with a wildcard). An interval can be used as long as it is possible to determine a single key tuple containing all rows that match the condition (or two intervals if <> or != is used). For example, for this condition:

  key_part1 = 'foo' AND key_part2 >= 10 AND key_part3 > 10
  

  The single interval is:

  ('foo',10,10) < ( key_part1, key_part2, key_part3) < ( 'foo',+inf,+inf)
  

  It is possible that the created interval contains more rows than the initial condition. For example, the preceding interval includes the value ('foo', 11, 0), which does not satisfy the original condition.

• If conditions that cover sets of rows contained within intervals are combined with OR, they form a condition that covers a set of rows contained within the union of their intervals. If the conditions are combined with AND, they form a condition that covers a set of rows contained within the intersection of their intervals. For example, for this condition on a two-part index:

  (key_part1 = 1 AND key_part2 < 2) OR (key_part1 > 5)
  

  The intervals are:

  (1,-inf) < (key_part1,key_part2) < (1,2)
  (5,-inf) < (key_part1,key_part2)
  

  In this example, the interval on the first line uses one key part for the left bound and two key parts for the right bound. The interval on the second line uses only one key part. The key_len column in the EXPLAIN output indicates the maximum length of the key prefix used.

  In some cases, key_len may indicate that a key part was used, but that might be not what you would expect. Suppose that key_part1 and key_part2 can be NULL. Then the key_len column displays two key part lengths for the following condition:

  key_part1 >= 1 AND key_part2 < 2
  

  But, in fact, the condition is converted to this:

  key_part1 >= 1 AND key_part2 IS NOT NULL
  

Section 6.2.5.1, "The Range Access Method for Single-Part Indexes," describes how optimizations are performed to combine or eliminate intervals for range conditions on a single-part index. Analogous steps are performed for range conditions on multiple-part indexes.

6.2.6. Index Merge Optimization

The Index Merge method is used to retrieve rows with several range scans and to merge their results into one. The merge can produce unions, intersections, or unions-of-intersections of its underlying scans.

Note: If you have upgraded from a previous version of MySQL, you should be aware that this type of join optimization is first introduced in MySQL 5.0, and represents a significant change in behavior with regard to indexes. (Formerly, MySQL was able to use at most only one index for each referenced table.)

In EXPLAIN output, the Index Merge method appears as index_merge in the type column. In this case, the key column contains a list of indexes used, and key_len contains a list of the longest key parts for those indexes.

Examples:

SELECT * FROM tbl_name  WHERE key_part1  = 10 OR key_part2  = 20;


SELECT * FROM tbl_name
  WHERE (key_part1  = 10 OR key_part2  = 20) AND non_key_part=30;


SELECT * FROM t1, t2
  WHERE (t1.key1  IN (1,2) OR t1.key2  LIKE 'value%')
  AND t2.key1=t1.some_col;


SELECT * FROM t1, t2
  WHERE t1.key1=1
  AND (t2.key1=t1.some_col  OR t2.key2=t1.some_col2);

The Index Merge method has several access algorithms (seen in the Extra field of EXPLAIN output):

• Using intersect(...)

• Using union(...)

• Using sort_union(...)

The following sections describe these methods in greater detail.

Note: The Index Merge optimization algorithm has the following known deficiencies:

• If a range scan is possible on some key, an Index Merge is not considered. For example, consider this query:

  SELECT * FROM t1 WHERE (goodkey1 < 10 OR goodkey2 < 20) AND badkey < 30;
  

  For this query, two plans are possible:

  • An Index Merge scan using the (goodkey1 < 10 OR goodkey2 < 20) condition.

  • A range scan using the badkey < 30 condition.

  However, the optimizer considers only the second plan. If that is not what you want, you can make the optimizer consider Index Merge by using IGNORE INDEX or FORCE INDEX. The following queries are executed using Index Merge:

  SELECT * FROM t1 FORCE INDEX(goodkey1,goodkey2)
    WHERE (goodkey1 < 10 OR goodkey2 < 20) AND badkey < 30;
  
  
  SELECT * FROM t1 IGNORE INDEX(badkey)
    WHERE (goodkey1 < 10 OR goodkey2 < 20) AND badkey < 30;
  

• If your query has a complex WHERE clause with deep AND/OR nesting and MySQL doesn't choose the optimal plan, try distributing terms using the following identity laws:

  (x  AND y) OR z  = (x  OR z) AND (y  OR z)
  (x  OR y) AND z  = (x  AND z) OR (y  AND z)
  

• Index Merge is not applicable to fulltext indexes. We plan to extend it to cover these in a future MySQL release.

The choice between different possible variants of the Index Merge access method and other access methods is based on cost estimates of various available options.

6.2.6.1. The Index Merge Intersection Access Algorithm

This access algorithm can be employed when a WHERE clause was converted to several range conditions on different keys combined with AND, and each condition is one of the following:

• In this form, where the index has exactly N parts (that is, all index parts are covered):

  key_part1=const1 AND key_part2=const2 ... AND key_partN=constN
  

• Any range condition over a primary key of an InnoDB or BDB table.

Examples:

SELECT * FROM innodb_table  WHERE primary_key  < 10 AND key_col1=20;


SELECT * FROM tbl_name
  WHERE (key1_part1=1 AND key1_part2=2) AND key2=2;

The Index Merge intersection algorithm performs simultaneous scans on all used indexes and produces the intersection of row sequences that it receives from the merged index scans.

If all columns used in the query are covered by the used indexes, full table rows are not retrieved (EXPLAIN output contains Using index in ExTRa field in this case). Here is an example of such a query:

SELECT COUNT(*) FROM t1 WHERE key1=1 AND key2=1;

If the used indexes don't cover all columns used in the query, full rows are retrieved only when the range conditions for all used keys are satisfied.

If one of the merged conditions is a condition over a primary key of an InnoDB or BDB table, it is not used for row retrieval, but is used to filter out rows retrieved using other conditions.

6.2.6.2. The Index Merge Union Access Algorithm

The applicability criteria for this algorithm are similar to those for the Index Merge method intersection algorithm. The algorithm can be employed when the table's WHERE clause was converted to several range conditions on different keys combined with OR, and each condition is one of the following:

• In this form, where the index has exactly N parts (that is, all index parts are covered):

  key_part1=const1 AND key_part2=const2 ... AND key_partN=constN
  

• Any range condition over a primary key of an InnoDB or BDB table.

• A condition for which the Index Merge method intersection algorithm is applicable.

Examples:

SELECT * FROM t1 WHERE key1=1 OR key2=2 OR key3=3;


SELECT * FROM innodb_table  WHERE (key1=1 AND key2=2) OR
  (key3=  'foo'    AND key4=  'bar'  ) AND key5=5;

6.2.6.3. The Index Merge Sort-Union Access Algorithm

This access algorithm is employed when the WHERE clause was converted to several range conditions combined by OR, but for which the Index Merge method union algorithm is not applicable.

Examples:

SELECT * FROM tbl_name  WHERE key_col1  < 10 OR key_col2  < 20;


SELECT * FROM tbl_name
  WHERE (key_col1  > 10 OR key_col2  = 20) AND nonkey_col=30;

The difference between the sort-union algorithm and the union algorithm is that the sort-union algorithm must first fetch row IDs for all rows and sort them before returning any rows.

6.2.7. IS NULL Optimization

MySQL can perform the same optimization on col_name IS NULL that it can use for col_name=constant_value. For example, MySQL can use indexes and ranges to search for NULL with IS NULL.

Examples:

SELECT * FROM tbl_name  WHERE key_col  IS NULL;


SELECT * FROM tbl_name  WHERE key_col  <=> NULL;


SELECT * FROM tbl_name
  WHERE key_col=const1  OR key_col=const2  OR key_col  IS NULL;

If a WHERE clause includes a col_name IS NULL condition for a column that is declared as NOT NULL, that expression is optimized away. This optimization does not occur in cases when the column might produce NULL anyway; for example, if it comes from a table on the right side of a LEFT JOIN.

MySQL can also optimize the combination col_name = expr AND col_name IS NULL, a form that is common in resolved subqueries. EXPLAIN shows ref_or_null when this optimization is used.

This optimization can handle one IS NULL for any key part.

Some examples of queries that are optimized, assuming that there is an index on columns a and b of table t2:

SELECT * FROM t1 WHERE t1.a=expr  OR t1.a IS NULL;


SELECT * FROM t1, t2 WHERE t1.a=t2.a OR t2.a IS NULL;


SELECT * FROM t1, t2
  WHERE (t1.a=t2.a OR t2.a IS NULL) AND t2.b=t1.b;


SELECT * FROM t1, t2
  WHERE t1.a=t2.a AND (t2.b=t1.b OR t2.b IS NULL);


SELECT * FROM t1, t2
  WHERE (t1.a=t2.a AND t2.a IS NULL AND ...)
  OR (t1.a=t2.a AND t2.a IS NULL AND ...);

ref_or_null works by first doing a read on the reference key, and then a separate search for rows with a NULL key value.

Note that the optimization can handle only one IS NULL level. In the following query, MySQL uses key lookups only on the expression (t1.a=t2.a AND t2.a IS NULL) and is not able to use the key part on b:

SELECT * FROM t1, t2
  WHERE (t1.a=t2.a AND t2.a IS NULL)
  OR (t1.b=t2.b AND t2.b IS NULL);

6.2.8. DISTINCT Optimization

DISTINCT combined with ORDER BY needs a temporary table in many cases.

Because DISTINCT may use GROUP BY, you should be aware of how MySQL works with columns in ORDER BY or HAVING clauses that are not part of the selected columns.

In most cases, a DISTINCT clause can be considered as a special case of GROUP BY. For example, the following two queries are equivalent:

SELECT DISTINCT c1, c2, c3 FROM t1 WHERE c1 > const;


SELECT c1, c2, c3 FROM t1 WHERE c1 > const GROUP BY c1, c2, c3;

Due to this equivalence, the optimizations applicable to GROUP BY queries can be also applied to queries with a DISTINCT clause. Thus, for more details on the optimization possibilities for DISTINCT queries, see Section 6.2.13, "GROUP BY Optimization."

When combining LIMIT row_count with DISTINCT, MySQL stops as soon as it finds row_count unique rows.

If you do not use columns from all tables named in a query, MySQL stops scanning any unused tables as soon as it finds the first match. In the following case, assuming that t1 is used before t2 (which you can check with EXPLAIN), MySQL stops reading from t2 (for any particular row in t1) when it finds the first row in t2:

SELECT DISTINCT t1.a FROM t1, t2 where t1.a=t2.a;

6.2.9. LEFT JOIN and RIGHT JOIN Optimization

MySQL implements an ALEFT JOIN B join_condition as follows:

• Table B is set to depend on table A and all tables on which A depends.

• Table A is set to depend on all tables (except B) that are used in the LEFT JOIN condition.

• The LEFT JOIN condition is used to decide how to retrieve rows from table B. (In other words, any condition in the WHERE clause is not used.)

• All standard join optimizations are performed, with the exception that a table is always read after all tables on which it depends. If there is a circular dependence, MySQL issues an error.

• All standard WHERE optimizations are performed.

• If there is a row in A that matches the WHERE clause, but there is no row in B that matches the ON condition, an extra B row is generated with all columns set to NULL.

• If you use LEFT JOIN to find rows that do not exist in some table and you have the following test: col_name IS NULL in the WHERE part, where col_name is a column that is declared as NOT NULL, MySQL stops searching for more rows (for a particular key combination) after it has found one row that matches the LEFT JOIN condition.

The implementation of RIGHT JOIN is analogous to that of LEFT JOIN with the roles of the tables reversed.

The join optimizer calculates the order in which tables should be joined. The table read order forced by LEFT JOIN or STRAIGHT_JOIN helps the join optimizer do its work much more quickly, because there are fewer table permutations to check. Note that this means that if you do a query of the following type, MySQL does a full scan on b because the LEFT JOIN forces it to be read before d:

SELECT *
  FROM a JOIN b LEFT JOIN c ON (c.key=a.key) LEFT JOIN d ON (d.key=a.key)
  WHERE b.key=d.key;

The fix in this case is to reverse the order in which a and b are listed in the FROM clause:

SELECT *
  FROM a JOIN b LEFT JOIN c ON (c.key=a.key) LEFT JOIN d ON (d.key=a.key)
  WHERE b.key=d.key;

For a LEFT JOIN, if the WHERE condition is always false for the generated NULL row, the LEFT JOIN is changed to a normal join. For example, the WHERE clause would be false in the following query if t2.column1 were NULL:

SELECT * FROM t1 LEFT JOIN t2 ON (column1) WHERE t2.column2=5;

Therefore, it is safe to convert the query to a normal join:

SELECT * FROM t1, t2 WHERE t2.column2=5 AND t1.column1=t2.column1;

This can be made faster because MySQL can use table t2 before table t1 if doing so would result in a better query plan. To force a specific table order, use STRAIGHT_JOIN.

6.2.10. Nested Join Optimization

As of MySQL 5.0.1, the syntax for expressing joins allows nested joins.

The syntax of table_factor is extended in comparison with the SQL Standard. The latter accepts only table_reference, not a list of them inside a pair of parentheses. This is a conservative extension if we consider each comma in a list of table_reference items as equivalent to an inner join. For example:

SELECT * FROM t1 LEFT JOIN (t2, t3, t4)
                 ON (t2.a=t1.a AND t3.b=t1.b AND t4.c=t1.c)

is equivalent to:

SELECT * FROM t1 LEFT JOIN (t2 CROSS JOIN t3 CROSS JOIN t4)
                 ON (t2.a=t1.a AND t3.b=t1.b AND t4.c=t1.c)

In MySQL, CROSS JOIN is a syntactic equivalent to INNER JOIN (they can replace each other). In standard SQL, they are not equivalent. INNER JOIN is used with an ON clause; CROSS JOIN is used otherwise.

In versions of MySQL prior to 5.0.1, parentheses in table_references were just omitted and all join operations were grouped to the left. In general, parentheses can be ignored in join expressions containing only inner join operations.

After removing parentheses and grouping operations to the left, the join expression:

t1 LEFT JOIN (t2 LEFT JOIN t3 ON t2.b=t3.b OR t2.b IS NULL)
   ON t1.a=t2.a

transforms into the expression:

(t1 LEFT JOIN t2 ON t1.a=t2.a) LEFT JOIN t3
    ON t2.b=t3.b OR t2.b IS NULL

Yet, the two expressions are not equivalent. To see this, suppose that the tables t1, t2, and t3 have the following state:

• Table t1 contains rows (1), (2)

• Table t2 contains row (1,101)

• Table t3 contains row (101)

In this case, the first expression returns a result set including the rows (1,1,101,101), (2,NULL,NULL,NULL), whereas the second expression returns the rows (1,1,101,101), (2,NULL,NULL,101):

mysql>  SELECT *
     -> FROM t1
     ->      LEFT JOIN
     ->      (t2 LEFT JOIN t3 ON t2.b=t3.b OR t2.b IS NULL)
    ->      ON t1.a=t2.a;
+------+------+------+------ +
| a    | a    | b    | b     |
+------+------+------+------ +
|    1 |    1 |  101 |   101 |
|    2 | NULL | NULL |  NULL |
+------+------+------+------ +


mysql>  SELECT *
    -> FROM (t1 LEFT JOIN t2 ON t1.a=t2.a)
    ->      LEFT JOIN t3
    ->      ON t2.b=t3.b OR t2.b IS NULL;
+------+------+------+------ +
| a    | a    | b    | b     |
+------+------+------+------ +
|    1 |    1 |  101 |   101 |
|    2 | NULL | NULL |   101 |
+------+------+------+------ +

In the following example, an outer join operation is used together with an inner join operation:

t1 LEFT JOIN (t2, t3) ON t1.a=t2.a

That expression cannot be transformed into the following expression:

t1 LEFT JOIN t2 ON t1.a=t2.a, t3.

For the given table states, the two expressions return different sets of rows:

mysql>  SELECT *
        -> FROM t1 LEFT JOIN (t2, t3) ON t1.a=t2.a;
+------+------+------+------ +
| a    | a    | b    | b     |
+------+------+------+------ +
|    1 |    1 |  101 |   101 |
|    2 | NULL | NULL |  NULL |
+------+------+------+------ +


mysql>  SELECT *
        -> FROM t1 LEFT JOIN t2 ON t1.a=t2.a, t3;
+------+------+------+------ +
| a    | a    | b    | b     |
+------+------+------+------ +
|    1 |    1 |  101 |   101 |
|    2 | NULL | NULL |   101 |
+------+------+------+------ +

Therefore, if we omit parentheses in a join expression with outer join operators, we might change the result set for the original expression.

More exactly, we cannot ignore parentheses in the right operand of the left outer join operation and in the left operand of a right join operation. In other words, we cannot ignore parentheses for the inner table expressions of outer join operations. Parentheses for the other operand (operand for the outer table) can be ignored.

The following expression:

(t1,t2) LEFT JOIN t3 ON P(t2.b,t3.b)

is equivalent to this expression:

t1, t2 LEFT JOIN t3 ON P(t2.b,t3.b)

for any tables t1,t2,t3 and any condition P over attributes t2.b and t3.b.

Whenever the order of execution of the join operations in a join expression (join_table) is not from left to right, we talk about nested joins. Consider the following queries:

SELECT * FROM t1 LEFT JOIN (t2 LEFT JOIN t3 ON t2.b=t3.b) ON t1.a=t2.a
  WHERE t1.a > 1


SELECT * FROM t1 LEFT JOIN (t2, t3) ON t1.a=t2.a
  WHERE (t2.b=t3.b OR t2.b IS NULL) AND t1.a > 1

Those queries are considered to contain these nested joins:

t2 LEFT JOIN t3 ON t2.b=t3.b
t2, t3

The nested join is formed in the first query with a left join operation, whereas in the second query it is formed with an inner join operation.

In the first query, the parentheses can be omitted: The grammatical structure of the join expression will dictate the same order of execution for join operations. For the second query, the parentheses cannot be omitted, although the join expression here can be interpreted unambiguously without them. (In our extended syntax the parentheses in (t2, t3) of the second query are required, although theoretically the query could be parsed without them: We still would have unambiguous syntactical structure for the query because LEFT JOIN and ON would play the role of the left and right delimiters for the expression (t2,t3).)

The preceding examples demonstrate these points:

• For join expressions involving only inner joins (and not outer joins), parentheses can be removed. You can remove parentheses and evaluate left to right (or, in fact, you can evaluate the tables in any order).

• The same is not true, in general, for outer joins or for outer joins mixed with inner joins. Removal of parentheses may change the result.

Queries with nested outer joins are executed in the same pipeline manner as queries with inner joins. More exactly, a variation of the nested-loop join algorithm is exploited. Recall by what algorithmic schema the nested-loop join executes a query. Suppose that we have a join query over 3 tables T1,T2,T3 of the form:

SELECT * FROM T1 INNER JOIN T2 ON P1(T1,T2)
                 INNER JOIN T3 ON P2(T2,T3)
  WHERE P(T1,T2,T3).

Here, P1(T1,T2) and P2(T3,T3) are some join conditions (on expressions), whereas P(t1,t2,t3) is a condition over columns of tables T1,T2,T3.

The nested-loop join algorithm would execute this query in the following manner:

FOR each row t1 in T1 {
   FOR each row t2 in T2 such that P1(t1,t2) {
     FOR each row t3 in T3 such that P2(t2,t3) {
       IF P(t1,t2,t3) {
          t:=t1||t2||t3; OUTPUT t;
      }
    }
  }
}

The notation t1||t2||t3 means "a row constructed by concatenating the columns of rows t1, t2, and t3." In some of the following examples, NULL where a row name appears means that NULL is used for each column of that row. For example, t1||t2||NULL means "a row constructed by concatenating the columns of rows t1 and t2, and NULL for each column of t3."

Now let's consider a query with nested outer joins:

SELECT * FROM T1 LEFT JOIN
              (T2 LEFT JOIN T3 ON P2(T2,T3))
              ON P1(T1,T2)
  WHERE P(T1,T2,T3).

For this query, we modify the nested-loop pattern to get:

FOR each row t1 in T1 {
  BOOL f1:=FALSE;
  FOR each row t2 in T2 such that P1(t1,t2) {
    BOOL f2:=FALSE;
    FOR each row t3 in T3 such that P2(t2,t3) {
      IF P(t1,t2,t3) {
        t:=t1||t2||t3; OUTPUT t;
      }
      f2=TRUE;
      f1=TRUE;
    }
    IF (!f2) {
      IF P(t1,t2,NULL) {
        t:=t1||t2||NULL; OUTPUT t;
      }
      f1=TRUE;
    }
    }
    IF (!f1) {
      IF P(t1,NULL,NULL) {
        t:=t1||NULL||NULL; OUTPUT t;
      }
   }
}

In general, for any nested loop for the first inner table in an outer join operation, a flag is introduced that is turned off before the loop and is checked after the loop. The flag is turned on when for the current row from the outer table a match from the table representing the inner operand is found. If at the end of the loop cycle the flag is still off, no match has been found for the current row of the outer table. In this case, the row is complemented by NULL values for the columns of the inner tables. The result row is passed to the final check for the output or into the next nested loop, but only if the row satisfies the join condition of all embedded outer joins.

In our example, the outer join table expressed by the following expression is embedded:

(T2 LEFT JOIN T3 ON P2(T2,T3))

Note that for the query with inner joins, the optimizer could choose a different order of nested loops, such as this one:

FOR each row t3 in T3 {
  FOR each row t2 in T2 such that P2(t2,t3) {
    FOR each row t1 in T1 such that P1(t1,t2) {
      IF P(t1,t2,t3) {
         t:=t1||t2||t3; OUTPUT t;
      }
    }
  }
}

For the queries with outer joins, the optimizer can choose only such an order where loops for outer tables precede loops for inner tables. Thus, for our query with outer joins, only one nesting order is possible. For the following query, the optimizer will evaluate two different nestings:

SELECT * T1 LEFT JOIN (T2,T3) ON P1(T1,T2) AND P2(T1,T3)
  WHERE P(T1,T2,T3)

The nestings are these:

FOR each row t1 in T1 {
  BOOL f1:=FALSE;
  FOR each row t2 in T2 such that P1(t1,t2) {
    FOR each row t3 in T3 such that P2(t1,t3) {
      IF P(t1,t2,t3) {
        t:=t1||t2||t3; OUTPUT t;
      }
      f1:=TRUE
    }
  }
  IF (!f1) {
   IF P(t1,NULL,NULL) {
     t:=t1||NULL||NULL; OUTPUT t;
   }
  }
}

and:

FOR each row t1 in T1 {
  BOOL f1:=FALSE;
  FOR each row t3 in T3 such that P2(t1,t3) {
    FOR each row t2 in T2 such that P1(t1,t2) {
      IF P(t1,t2,t3) {
        t:=t1||t2||t3; OUTPUT t;
      }
      f1:=TRUE
    }
  }
  IF (!f1) {
   IF P(t1,NULL,NULL) {
     t:=t1||NULL||NULL; OUTPUT t;
    }
  }
}

In both nestings, T1 must be processed in the outer loop because it is used in an outer join. T2 and T3 are used in an inner join, so that join must be processed in the inner loop. However, because the join is an inner join, T2 and T3 can be processed in either order.

When discussing the nested-loop algorithm for inner joins, we omitted some details whose impact on the performance of query execution may be huge. We did not mention so-called "pushed-down" conditions. Suppose that our WHERE condition P(T1,T2,T3) can be represented by a conjunctive formula:

P(T1,T2,T2) = C1(T1) AND C2(T2) AND C3(T3).

In this case, MySQL actually uses the following nested-loop schema for the execution of the query with inner joins:

FOR each row t1 in T1 such that C1(t1) {
  FOR each row t2 in T2 such that P1(t1,t2) AND C2(t2)  {
    FOR each row t3 in T3 such that P2(t2,t3) AND C3(t3) {
      IF P(t1,t2,t3) {
         t:=t1||t2||t3; OUTPUT t;
      }
    }
  }
}

You see that each of the conjuncts C1(T1), C2(T2), C3(T3) is pushed out of the most inner loop to the most outer loop where it can be evaluated. If C1(T1) is a very restrictive condition, this condition pushdown may greatly reduce the number of rows from table T1 passed to the inner loops. As a result, the execution time for the query may improve immensely.

For a query with outer joins, the WHERE condition is to be checked only after it has been found that the current row from the outer table has a match in the inner tables. Thus, the optimization of pushing conditions out of the inner nested loops cannot be applied directly to queries with outer joins. Here we have to introduce conditional pushed-down predicates guarded by the flags that are turned on when a match has been encountered.

For our example with outer joins with:

P(T1,T2,T3)=C1(T1) AND C(T2) AND C3(T3)

the nested-loop schema using guarded pushed-down conditions looks like this:

FOR each row t1 in T1 such that C1(t1) {
  BOOL f1:=FALSE;
  FOR each row t2 in T2
      such that P1(t1,t2) AND (f1?C2(t2):TRUE) {
    BOOL f2:=FALSE;
    FOR each row t3 in T3
        such that P2(t2,t3) AND (f1&&f2?C3(t3):TRUE) {
      IF (f1&&f2?TRUE:(C2(t2) AND C3(t3))) {
        t:=t1||t2||t3; OUTPUT t;
      }
      f2=TRUE;
      f1=TRUE;
    }
    IF (!f2) {
      IF (f1?TRUE:C2(t2) && P(t1,t2,NULL)) {
        t:=t1||t2||NULL; OUTPUT t;
      }
      f1=TRUE;
    }
  }
  IF (!f1 && P(t1,NULL,NULL)) {
      t:=t1||NULL||NULL; OUTPUT t;
  }
}

In general, pushed-down predicates can be extracted from join conditions such as P1(T1,T2) and P(T2,T3). In this case, a pushed-down predicate is guarded also by a flag that prevents checking the predicate for the NULL-complemented row generated by the corresponding outer join operation.

Note that access by key from one inner table to another in the same nested join is prohibited if it is induced by a predicate from the WHERE condition. (We could use conditional key access in this case, but this technique is not employed yet in MySQL 5.0.)

6.2.11. Outer Join Simplification

Table expressions in the FROM clause of a query are simplified in many cases.

At the parser stage, queries with right outer join operations are converted to equivalent queries containing only left join operations. In the general case, the conversion is performed according to the following rule:

(T1, ...) RIGHT JOIN (T2,...) ON P(T1,...,T2,...) =
(T2, ...) LEFT JOIN (T1,...) ON P(T1,...,T2,...)

All inner join expressions of the form T1 INNER JOIN T2 ON P(T1,T2) are replaced by the list T1,T2, P(T1,T2) being joined as a conjunct to the WHERE condition (or to the join condition of the embedding join, if there is any).

When the optimizer evaluates plans for join queries with outer join operation, it takes into consideration only the plans where, for each such operation, the outer tables are accessed before the inner tables. The optimizer options are limited because only such plans enable us to execute queries with outer joins operations by the nested loop schema.

Suppose that we have a query of the form:

SELECT * T1 LEFT JOIN T2 ON P1(T1,T2)
  WHERE P(T1,T2) AND R(T2)

with R(T2) narrowing greatly the number of matching rows from table T2. If we executed the query as it is, the optimizer would have no other choice than to access table T1 before table T2, which may lead to a very inefficient execution plan.

Fortunately, MySQL converts such a query into a query without an outer join operation if the WHERE condition is null-rejected. A condition is called null-rejected for an outer join operation if it evaluates to FALSE or to UNKNOWN for any NULL-complemented row built for the operation.

Thus, for this outer join:

T1 LEFT JOIN T2 ON T1.A=T2.A

Conditions such as these are null-rejected:

T2.B IS NOT NULL,
T2.B >3,
T2.C <= T1.C,
T2.B < 2 OR T2.C > 1

Conditions such as these are not null-rejected:

T2.B IS NULL,
T1.B < 3 OR T2.B IS NOT NULL,
T1.B < 3 OR T2.B > 3

The general rules for checking whether a condition is null-rejected for an outer join operation are simple. A condition is null-rejected in the following cases:

• If it is of the form A IS NOT NULL, where A is an attribute of any of the inner tables

• If it is a predicate containing a reference to an inner table that evaluates to UNKNOWN when one of its arguments is NULL

• If it is a conjunction containing a null-rejected condition as a conjunct

• If it is a disjunction of null-rejected conditions

A condition can be null-rejected for one outer join operation in a query and not null-rejected for another. In the query:

SELECT * FROM T1 LEFT JOIN T2 ON T2.A=T1.A
                 LEFT JOIN T3 ON T3.B=T1.B
  WHERE T3.C > 0

the WHERE condition is null-rejected for the second outer join operation but is not null-rejected for the first one.

If the WHERE condition is null-rejected for an outer join operation in a query, the outer join operation is replaced by an inner join operation.

For example, the preceding query is replaced with the query:

SELECT * FROM T1 LEFT JOIN T2 ON T2.A=T1.A
                 INNER JOIN T3 ON T3.B=T1.B
  WHERE T3.C > 0

For the original query, the optimizer would evaluate plans compatible with only one access order T1,T2,T3. For the replacing query, it additionally considers the access sequence T3,T1,T2.

A conversion of one outer join operation may trigger a conversion of another. Thus, the query:

SELECT * FROM T1 LEFT JOIN T2 ON T2.A=T1.A
                 LEFT JOIN T3 ON T3.B=T2.B
  WHERE T3.C > 0

will be first converted to the query:

SELECT * FROM T1 LEFT JOIN T2 ON T2.A=T1.A
                 INNER JOIN T3 ON T3.B=T2.B
  WHERE T3.C > 0

which is equivalent to the query:

SELECT * FROM (T1 LEFT JOIN T2 ON T2.A=T1.A), T3
  WHERE T3.C > 0 AND T3.B=T2.B

Now the remaining outer join operation can be replaced by an inner join, too, because the condition T3.B=T2.B is null-rejected and we get a query without outer joins at all:

SELECT * FROM (T1 INNER JOIN T2 ON T2.A=T1.A), T3
  WHERE T3.C > 0 AND T3.B=T2.B

Sometimes we succeed in replacing an embedded outer join operation, but cannot convert the embedding outer join. The following query:

SELECT * FROM T1 LEFT JOIN
              (T2 LEFT JOIN T3 ON T3.B=T2.B)
              ON T2.A=T1.A
  WHERE T3.C > 0

is converted to:

SELECT * FROM T1 LEFT JOIN
              (T2 INNER JOIN T3 ON T3.B=T2.B)
              ON T2.A=T1.A
  WHERE T3.C > 0,

That can be rewritten only to the form still containing the embedding outer join operation:

SELECT * FROM T1 LEFT JOIN
              (T2,T3)
              ON (T2.A=T1.A AND T3.B=T2.B)
  WHERE T3.C > 0.

When trying to convert an embedded outer join operation in a query, we must take into account the join condition for the embedding outer join together with the WHERE condition. In the query:

SELECT * FROM T1 LEFT JOIN
              (T2 LEFT JOIN T3 ON T3.B=T2.B)
              ON T2.A=T1.A AND T3.C=T1.C
  WHERE T3.D > 0 OR T1.D > 0

the WHERE condition is not null-rejected for the embedded outer join, but the join condition of the embedding outer join T2.A=T1.A AND T3.C=T1.C is null-rejected. So the query can be converted to:

SELECT * FROM T1 LEFT JOIN
              (T2, T3)
              ON T2.A=T1.A AND T3.C=T1.C AND T3.B=T2.B
  WHERE T3.D > 0 OR T1.D > 0

The algorithm that converts outer join operations into inner joins was implemented in full measure, as it has been described here, in MySQL 5.0.1. MySQL 4.1 performs only some simple conversions.

6.2.12. ORDER BY Optimization

In some cases, MySQL can use an index to satisfy an ORDER BY clause without doing any extra sorting.

The index can also be used even if the ORDER BY does not match the index exactly, as long as all of the unused portions of the index and all the extra ORDER BY columns are constants in the WHERE clause. The following queries use the index to resolve the ORDER BY part:

SELECT * FROM t1
  ORDER BY key_part1,key_part2,... ;


SELECT * FROM t1
  WHERE key_part1=constant
  ORDER BY key_part2;


SELECT * FROM t1
  ORDER BY key_part1  DESC, key_part2 DESC;


SELECT * FROM t1
  WHERE key_part1=1
  ORDER BY key_part1  DESC, key_part2 DESC;

In some cases, MySQL cannot use indexes to resolve the ORDER BY, although it still uses indexes to find the rows that match the WHERE clause. These cases include the following:

• You use ORDER BY on different keys:

  SELECT * FROM t1 ORDER BY key1, key2;
  

• You use ORDER BY on non-consecutive parts of a key:

  SELECT * FROM t1 WHERE key2=constant ORDER BY key_part2;
  

• You mix ASC and DESC:

  SELECT * FROM t1 ORDER BY key_part1 DESC, key_part2 ASC;
  

• The key used to fetch the rows is not the same as the one used in the ORDER BY:

  SELECT * FROM t1 WHERE key2=constant ORDER BY key1;
  

• You are joining many tables, and the columns in the ORDER BY are not all from the first non-constant table that is used to retrieve rows. (This is the first table in the EXPLAIN output that does not have a const join type.)

• You have different ORDER BY and GROUP BY expressions.

• The type of table index used does not store rows in order. For example, this is true for a HASH index in a MEMORY table.

With EXPLAIN SELECT ... ORDER BY, you can check whether MySQL can use indexes to resolve the query. It cannot if you see Using filesort in the Extra column. See Section 6.2.1, "Optimizing Queries with EXPLAIN."

A filesort optimization is used that records not only the sort key value and row position, but the columns required for the query as well. This avoids reading the rows twice. The filesort algorithm works like this:

This algorithm represents a significant improvement over that used in some older versions of MySQL.

To avoid a slowdown, this optimization is used only if the total size of the extra columns in the sort tuple does not exceed the value of the max_length_for_sort_data system variable. (A symptom of setting the value of this variable too high is that you should see high disk activity and low CPU activity.)

If you want to increase ORDER BY speed, check whether you can get MySQL to use indexes rather than an extra sorting phase. If this is not possible, you can try the following strategies:

• Increase the size of the sort_buffer_size variable.

• Increase the size of the read_rnd_buffer_size variable.

• Change tmpdir to point to a dedicated filesystem with large amounts of empty space. This option accepts several paths that are used in round-robin fashion. Paths should be separated by colon characters (':') on Unix and semicolon characters (';') on Windows, NetWare, and OS/2. You can use this feature to spread the load across several directories. Note: The paths should be for directories in filesystems that are located on different physical disks, not different partitions on the same disk.

By default, MySQL sorts all GROUP BY col1, col2, ... queries as if you specified ORDER BY col1, col2, ... in the query as well. If you include an ORDER BY clause explicitly that contains the same column list, MySQL optimizes it away without any speed penalty, although the sorting still occurs. If a query includes GROUP BY but you want to avoid the overhead of sorting the result, you can suppress sorting by specifying ORDER BY NULL. For example:

INSERT INTO foo
SELECT a, COUNT(*) FROM bar GROUP BY a ORDER BY NULL;

6.2.13. GROUP BY Optimization

The most general way to satisfy a GROUP BY clause is to scan the whole table and create a new temporary table where all rows from each group are consecutive, and then use this temporary table to discover groups and apply aggregate functions (if any). In some cases, MySQL is able to do much better than that and to avoid creation of temporary tables by using index access.

The most important preconditions for using indexes for GROUP BY are that all GROUP BY columns reference attributes from the same index, and that the index stores its keys in order (for example, this is a BTREE index and not a HASH index). Whether use of temporary tables can be replaced by index access also depends on which parts of an index are used in a query, the conditions specified for these parts, and the selected aggregate functions.

There are two ways to execute a GROUP BY query via index access, as detailed in the following sections. In the first method, the grouping operation is applied together with all range predicates (if any). The second method first performs a range scan, and then groups the resulting tuples.

6.2.13.1. Loose Index Scan

The most efficient way to process GROUP BY is when the index is used to directly retrieve the group fields. With this access method, MySQL uses the property of some index types that the keys are ordered (for example, BTREE). This property enables use of lookup groups in an index without having to consider all keys in the index that satisfy all WHERE conditions. This access method considers only a fraction of the keys in an index, so it is called a loose index scan. When there is no WHERE clause, a loose index scan reads as many keys as the number of groups, which may be a much smaller number than that of all keys. If the WHERE clause contains range predicates (see the discussion of the range join type in Section 6.2.1, "Optimizing Queries with EXPLAIN"), a loose index scan looks up the first key of each group that satisfies the range conditions, and again reads the least possible number of keys. This is possible under the following conditions:

• The query is over a single table.

• The GROUP BY includes the first consecutive parts of the index. (If, instead of GROUP BY, the query has a DISTINCT clause, all distinct attributes refer to the beginning of the index.)

• The only aggregate functions used (if any) are MIN() and MAX(), and all of them refer to the same column.

• Any other parts of the index than those from the GROUP BY referenced in the query must be constants (that is, they must be referenced in equalities with constants), except for the argument of MIN() or MAX() functions.

The EXPLAIN output for such queries shows Using index for group-by in the ExTRa column.

The following queries fall into this category, assuming that there is an index idx(c1,c2,c3) on table t1(c1,c2,c3,c4):

SELECT c1, c2 FROM t1 GROUP BY c1, c2;
SELECT DISTINCT c1, c2 FROM t1;
SELECT c1, MIN(c2) FROM t1 GROUP BY c1;
SELECT c1, c2 FROM t1 WHERE c1 < const GROUP BY c1, c2;
SELECT MAX(c3), MIN(c3), c1, c2 FROM t1 WHERE c2 > const GROUP BY c1, c2;
SELECT c2 FROM t1 WHERE c1 < const GROUP BY c1, c2;
SELECT c1, c2 FROM t1 WHERE c3 = const GROUP BY c1, c2;

The following queries cannot be executed with this quick select method, for the reasons given:

• There are aggregate functions other than MIN() or MAX(), for example:

  SELECT c1, SUM(c2) FROM t1 GROUP BY c1;
  

• The fields in the GROUP BY clause do not refer to the beginning of the index, as shown here:

  SELECT c1,c2 FROM t1 GROUP BY c2, c3;
  

• The query refers to a part of a key that comes after the GROUP BY part, and for which there is no equality with a constant, an example being:

  SELECT c1,c3 FROM t1 GROUP BY c1, c2;
  

6.2.13.2. Tight Index Scan

A tight index scan may be either a full index scan or a range index scan, depending on the query conditions.

When the conditions for a loose index scan are not met, it is still possible to avoid creation of temporary tables for GROUP BY queries. If there are range conditions in the WHERE clause, this method reads only the keys that satisfy these conditions. Otherwise, it performs an index scan. Because this method reads all keys in each range defined by the WHERE clause, or scans the whole index if there are no range conditions, we term it a tight index scan. Notice that with a tight index scan, the grouping operation is performed only after all keys that satisfy the range conditions have been found.

For this method to work, it is sufficient that there is a constant equality condition for all columns in a query referring to parts of the key coming before or in between parts of the GROUP BY key. The constants from the equality conditions fill in any "gaps" in the search keys so that it is possible to form complete prefixes of the index. These index prefixes then can be used for index lookups. If we require sorting of the GROUP BY result, and it is possible to form search keys that are prefixes of the index, MySQL also avoids extra sorting operations because searching with prefixes in an ordered index already retrieves all the keys in order.

The following queries do not work with the loose index scan access method described earlier, but still work with the tight index scan access method (assuming that there is an index idx(c1,c2,c3) on table t1(c1,c2,c3,c4)).

• There is a gap in the GROUP BY, but it is covered by the condition c2 = 'a':

  SELECT c1, c2, c3 FROM t1 WHERE c2 = 'a' GROUP BY c1, c3;
  

• The GROUP BY does not begin with the first part of the key, but there is a condition that provides a constant for that part:

  SELECT c1, c2, c3 FROM t1 WHERE c1 = 'a' GROUP BY c2, c3;
  

6.2.14. LIMIT Optimization

In some cases, MySQL handles a query differently when you are using LIMIT row_count and not using HAVING:

• If you are selecting only a few rows with LIMIT, MySQL uses indexes in some cases when normally it would prefer to do a full table scan.

• If you use LIMIT row_count with ORDER BY, MySQL ends the sorting as soon as it has found the first row_count rows of the sorted result, rather than sorting the entire result. If ordering is done by using an index, this is very fast. If a filesort must be done, all rows that match the query without the LIMIT clause must be selected, and most or all of them must be sorted, before it can be ascertained that the first row_count rows have been found. In either case, after the initial rows have been found, there is no need to sort any remainder of the result set, and MySQL does not do so.

• When combining LIMIT row_count with DISTINCT, MySQL stops as soon as it finds row_count unique rows.

• In some cases, a GROUP BY can be resolved by reading the key in order (or doing a sort on the key) and then calculating summaries until the key value changes. In this case, LIMIT row_count does not calculate any unnecessary GROUP BY values.

• As soon as MySQL has sent the required number of rows to the client, it aborts the query unless you are using SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS.

• LIMIT 0 quickly returns an empty set. This can be useful for checking the validity of a query. When using one of the MySQL APIs, it can also be employed for obtaining the types of the result columns. (This trick does not work in the MySQL Monitor, which merely displays Empty set in such cases; you should instead use SHOW COLUMNS or DESCRIBE for this purpose.)

• When the server uses temporary tables to resolve the query, it uses the LIMIT row_count clause to calculate how much space is required.

6.2.15. How to Avoid Table Scans

The output from EXPLAIN shows ALL in the type column when MySQL uses a table scan to resolve a query. This usually happens under the following conditions:

• The table is so small that it is faster to perform a table scan than to bother with a key lookup. This is common for tables with fewer than 10 rows and a short row length.

• There are no usable restrictions in the ON or WHERE clause for indexed columns.

• You are comparing indexed columns with constant values and MySQL has calculated (based on the index tree) that the constants cover too large a part of the table and that a table scan would be faster. See Section 6.2.4, "WHERE Clause Optimization."

• You are using a key with low cardinality (many rows match the key value) through another column. In this case, MySQL assumes that by using the key it probably will do many key lookups and that a table scan would be faster.

For small tables, a table scan often is appropriate and the performance impact is negligible. For large tables, try the following techniques to avoid having the optimizer incorrectly choose a table scan:

• Use ANALYZE TABLE tbl_name to update the key distributions for the scanned table.

• Use FORCE INDEX for the scanned table to tell MySQL that table scans are very expensive compared to using the given index:

  SELECT * FROM t1, t2 FORCE INDEX (index_for_column)
    WHERE t1.col_name=t2.col_name;
  

• Start mysqld with the --max-seeks-for-key=1000 option or use SET max_seeks_for_key=1000 to tell the optimizer to assume that no key scan causes more than 1,000 key seeks. See Section 4.2.2, "Server System Variables"

6.2.16. Speed of INSERT Statements

The time required for inserting a row is determined by the following factors, where the numbers indicate approximate proportions:

• Connecting: (3)

• Sending query to server: (2)

• Parsing query: (2)

• Inserting row: (1 x size of row)

• Inserting indexes: (1 x number of indexes)

• Closing: (1)

This does not take into consideration the initial overhead to open tables, which is done once for each concurrently running query.

The size of the table slows down the insertion of indexes by log N, assuming B-tree indexes.

You can use the following methods to speed up inserts:

• If you are inserting many rows from the same client at the same time, use INSERT statements with multiple VALUES lists to insert several rows at a time. This is considerably faster (many times faster in some cases) than using separate single-row INSERT statements. If you are adding data to a non-empty table, you can tune the bulk_insert_buffer_size variable to make data insertion even faster. See Section 4.2.2, "Server System Variables."

• If you are inserting a lot of rows from different clients, you can get higher speed by using the INSERT DELAYED statement.

• For a MyISAM table, you can use concurrent inserts to add rows at the same time that SELECT statements are running if there are no deleted rows in middle of the table. See Section 6.3.3, "Concurrent Inserts."

• When loading a table from a text file, use LOAD DATA INFILE. This is usually 20 times faster than using INSERT statements.

• With some extra work, it is possible to make LOAD DATA INFILE run even faster for a MyISAM table when the table has many indexes. Use the following procedure:

   

  1.	Optionally create the table with CREATE TABLE.
  2.	Execute a FLUSH TABLES statement or a mysqladmin flush-tables command.
  3.	Use myisamchk --keys-used=0 -rq /path/to/db/tbl_name. This removes all use of indexes for the table.
  4.	Insert data into the table with LOAD DATA INFILE. This does not update any indexes and therefore is very fast.
  5.	If you intend only to read from the table in the future, use myisampack to compress it. See Section 8.1.3.3, "Compressed Table Characteristics."
  6.	Re-create the indexes with myisamchk -rq /path/to/db/tbl_name. This creates the index tree in memory before writing it to disk, which is much faster than updating the index during LOAD DATA INFILE because it avoids lots of disk seeks. The resulting index tree is also perfectly balanced.
  7.	Execute a FLUSH TABLES statement or a mysqladmin flush-tables command.

  Note that LOAD DATA INFILE performs the preceding optimization automatically if the MyISAM table into which you insert data is empty. The main difference is that you can let myisamchk allocate much more temporary memory for the index creation than you might want the server to allocate for index re-creation when it executes the LOAD DATA INFILE statement.

  You can also disable or enable the indexes for a MyISAM table by using the following statements rather than myisamchk. If you use these statements, you can skip the FLUSH TABLE operations:

  ALTER TABLE tbl_name DISABLE KEYS;
  ALTER TABLE tbl_name ENABLE KEYS;
  

• To speed up INSERT operations that are performed with multiple statements, lock your tables:

  LOCK TABLES a WRITE;
  INSERT INTO a VALUES (1,23),(2,34),(4,33);
  INSERT INTO a VALUES (8,26),(6,29);
  UNLOCK TABLES;
  

  This benefits performance because the index buffer is flushed to disk only once, after all INSERT statements have completed. Normally, there would be as many index buffer flushes as there are INSERT statements. Explicit locking statements are not needed if you can insert all rows with a single INSERT.

  For transactional tables, you should use START TRANSACTION and COMMIT instead of LOCK TABLES to obtain faster insertions.

  Locking also lowers the total time for multiple-connection tests, although the maximum wait time for individual connections might go up because they wait for locks. For example:

   

  1.	Connection 1 does 1000 inserts
  2.	Connections 2, 3, and 4 do 1 insert
  3.	Connection 5 does 1000 inserts

  If you do not use locking, connections 2, 3, and 4 finish before 1 and 5. If you use locking, connections 2, 3, and 4 probably do not finish before 1 or 5, but the total time should be about 40% faster.

  INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE operations are very fast in MySQL, but you can obtain better overall performance by adding locks around everything that does more than about five inserts or updates in a row. If you do very many inserts in a row, you could do a LOCK TABLES followed by an UNLOCK TABLES once in a while (each 1,000 rows or so) to allow other threads access to the table. This would still result in a nice performance gain.

  INSERT is still much slower for loading data than LOAD DATA INFILE, even when using the strategies just outlined.

• To increase performance for MyISAM tables, for both LOAD DATA INFILE and INSERT, enlarge the key cache by increasing the key_buffer_size system variable. See Section 6.5.2, "Tuning Server Parameters."

6.2.17. Speed of UPDATE Statements

An update statement is optimized like a SELECT query with the additional overhead of a write. The speed of the write depends on the amount of data being updated and the number of indexes that are updated. Indexes that are not changed do not get updated.

Another way to get fast updates is to delay updates and then do many updates in a row later. Performing multiple updates together is much quicker than doing one at a time if you lock the table.

For a MyISAM table that uses dynamic row format, updating a row to a longer total length may split the row. If you do this often, it is very important to use OPTIMIZE TABLE occasionally.

6.2.18. Speed of DELETE Statements

The time required to delete individual rows is exactly proportional to the number of indexes. To delete rows more quickly, you can increase the size of the key cache by increasing the key_buffer_size system variable. See Section 6.5.2, "Tuning Server Parameters."

To delete all rows from a table, trUNCATE TABLE tbl_name is faster than DELETE FROM tbl_name.

6.2.19. Other Optimization Tips

This section lists a number of miscellaneous tips for improving query processing speed:

• Use persistent connections to the database to avoid connection overhead. If you cannot use persistent connections and you are initiating many new connections to the database, you may want to change the value of the thread_cache_size variable. See Section 6.5.2, "Tuning Server Parameters."

• Always check whether all your queries really use the indexes that you have created in the tables. In MySQL, you can do this with the EXPLAIN statement. See Section 6.2.1, "Optimizing Queries with EXPLAIN."

• Try to avoid complex SELECT queries on MyISAM tables that are updated frequently, to avoid problems with table locking that occur due to contention between readers and writers.

• With MyISAM tables that have no deleted rows in the middle, you can insert rows at the end at the same time that another query is reading from the table. If it is important to be able to do this, you should consider using the table in ways that avoid deleting rows. Another possibility is to run OPTIMIZE TABLE to defragment the table after you have deleted a lot of rows from it. See Section 8.1, "The MyISAM Storage Engine."

• To fix any compression issues that may have occurred with ARCHIVE tables, you can use OPTIMIZE TABLE. See Section 8.8, "The ARCHIVE Storage Engine."

• Use ALTER TABLE ... ORDER BY expr1, expr2, ... if you usually retrieve rows in expr1, expr2, ... order. By using this option after extensive changes to the table, you may be able to get higher performance.

• In some cases, it may make sense to introduce a column that is "hashed" based on information from other columns. If this column is short and reasonably unique, it may be much faster than a "wide" index on many columns. In MySQL, it is very easy to use this extra column:

  SELECT * FROM tbl_name
    WHERE hash_col=MD5(CONCAT(col1,col2))
    AND col1= 'constant'   AND col2= 'constant' ;
  

• For MyISAM tables that change frequently, you should try to avoid all variable-length columns ( VARCHAR, BLOB, and TEXT). The table uses dynamic row format if it includes even a single variable-length column. See Chapter 8, "Storage Engines and Table Types."

• It is normally not useful to split a table into different tables just because the rows become large. In accessing a row, the biggest performance hit is the disk seek needed to find the first byte of the row. After finding the data, most modern disks can read the entire row fast enough for most applications. The only cases where splitting up a table makes an appreciable difference is if it is a MyISAM table using dynamic row format that you can change to a fixed row size, or if you very often need to scan the table but do not need most of the columns. See Chapter 8, "Storage Engines and Table Types."

• If you often need to calculate results such as counts based on information from a lot of rows, it may be preferable to introduce a new table and update the counter in real time. An update of the following form is very fast:

  UPDATE tbl_name SET count_col=count_col+1 WHERE key_col=constant;
  

  This is very important when you use MySQL storage engines such as MyISAM that has only table-level locking (multiple readers with single writers). This also gives better performance with most database systems, because the row locking manager in this case has less to do.

• If you need to collect statistics from large log tables, use summary tables instead of scanning the entire log table. Maintaining the summaries should be much faster than trying to calculate statistics "live." Regenerating new summary tables from the logs when things change (depending on business decisions) is faster than changing the running application.

• If possible, you should classify reports as "live" or as "statistical," where data needed for statistical reports is created only from summary tables that are generated periodically from the live data.

• Take advantage of the fact that columns have default values. Insert values explicitly only when the value to be inserted differs from the default. This reduces the parsing that MySQL must do and improves the insert speed.

• In some cases, it is convenient to pack and store data into a BLOB column. In this case, you must provide code in your application to pack and unpack information, but this may save a lot of accesses at some stage. This is practical when you have data that does not conform well to a rows-and-columns table structure.

• Normally, you should try to keep all data non-redundant (observing what is referred to in database theory as third normal form). However, there may be situations in which it can be advantageous to duplicate information or create summary tables to gain more speed.

• Stored routines or UDFs (user-defined functions) may be a good way to gain performance for some tasks.

• You can always gain something by caching queries or answers in your application and then performing many inserts or updates together. If your database system supports table locks (as do MySQL and Oracle), this should help to ensure that the index cache is flushed only once after all updates. You can also take advantage of MySQL's query cache to achieve similar results; see Section 4.14, "The MySQL Query Cache."

• Use INSERT DELAYED when you do not need to know when your data is written. This reduces the overall insertion impact because many rows can be written with a single disk write.

• Use INSERT LOW_PRIORITY when you want to give SELECT statements higher priority than your inserts.

• Use SELECT HIGH_PRIORITY to get retrievals that jump the queue. That is, the SELECT is executed even if there is another client waiting to do a write.

• Use multiple-row INSERT statements to store many rows with one SQL statement. Many SQL servers support this, including MySQL.

• Use LOAD DATA INFILE to load large amounts of data. This is faster than using INSERT statements.

• Use AUTO_INCREMENT columns to generate unique values.

• Use OPTIMIZE TABLE once in a while to avoid fragmentation with dynamic-format MyISAM tables. See Section 8.1.3, "MyISAM Table Storage Formats."

• Use MEMORY ( HEAP) tables when possible to get more speed. See Section 8.4, "The MEMORY (HEAP) Storage Engine." MEMORY tables are useful for non-critical data that is accessed often, such as information about the last displayed banner for users who don't have cookies enabled in their Web browser. User sessions are another alternative available in many Web application environments for handling volatile state data.

• With Web servers, images and other binary assets should normally be stored as files. That is, store only a reference to the file rather than the file itself in the database. Most Web servers are better at caching files than database contents, so using files is generally faster.

• Columns with identical information in different tables should be declared to have identical data types so that joins based on the corresponding columns will be faster.

• Try to keep column names simple. For example, in a table named customer, use a column name of name instead of customer_name. To make your names portable to other SQL servers, you should keep them shorter than 18 characters.

• If you need really high speed, you should take a look at the low-level interfaces for data storage that the different SQL servers support. For example, by accessing the MySQL MyISAM storage engine directly, you could get a speed increase of two to five times compared to using the SQL interface. To be able to do this, the data must be on the same server as the application, and usually it should only be accessed by one process (because external file locking is really slow). You could eliminate these problems by introducing low-level MyISAM commands in the MySQL server (this could be one easy way to get more performance if needed). By carefully designing the database interface, it should be quite easy to support this type of optimization.

• If you are using numerical data, it is faster in many cases to access information from a database (using a live connection) than to access a text file. Information in the database is likely to be stored in a more compact format than in the text file, so accessing it involves fewer disk accesses. You also save code in your application because you need not parse your text files to find line and column boundaries.

• Replication can provide a performance benefit for some operations. You can distribute client retrievals among replication servers to split up the load. To avoid slowing down the master while making backups, you can make backups using a slave server. See Chapter 5, "Replication."

• Declaring a MyISAM table with the DELAY_KEY_WRITE=1 table option makes index updates faster because they are not flushed to disk until the table is closed. The downside is that if something kills the server while such a table is open, you should ensure that the table is okay by running the server with the --myisam-recover option, or by running myisamchk before restarting the server. (However, even in this case, you should not lose anything by using DELAY_KEY_WRITE, because the key information can always be generated from the data rows.)