Re: Queries with timestamps

On Wednesday 21 January 2004 19:06, Josh Berkus wrote:
> Arnau,
>
> > As the number of rows grows the time needed to execute this query
> > takes longer. What'd I should do improve the performance of this query?
>
> Tip #1) add an index to the timestamp column
> Tip #2) make sure that you VACUUM and ANALYZE regularly
> Tip #3) You will get better performance if you pass the "current_date - 1
> month" as a constant from the client instead of in the query. This is a
> known issue, expected to be fixed in 7.5.

(I think Tip 3 is already fixed in 7.3, or I misunderstand what Josh is
saying)

Note that this is timestamp-related and not "timestamp with time zone"
related. Most of the time you want the latter anyway. If you can use with
time zones and drop the cast you might well find the index is being used...

EXPLAIN ANALYSE SELECT * FROM log_core WHERE log_ts > CURRENT_DATE - '1
week'::interval;
QUERY PLAN
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Index Scan using log_core_ts_idx on log_core (cost=0.00..18.73 rows=239
width=117) (actual time=0.79..0.79 rows=0 loops=1)
Index Cond: (log_ts > ((('now'::text)::date - '7
days'::interval))::timestamp with time zone)
Total runtime: 1.03 msec
(3 rows)

It seems to help an accurate estimate of number-of-rows if you put an upper
and lower limit in.

--
Richard Huxton
Archonet Ltd