Re: Eliminating unnecessary left joins

Jim,

Maybe odd, but simpler to optimize this way.

Your idea would be also a very good optimization, there was already a
discussion about that here:
http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-performance/2006-01/msg00151.php, but
that time Tom refused it because it was too expensive and rare. Maybe now he
has a different opinion.
However, left join optimization is lot simpler and cheaper, and can
be useful not only for O/R mappers, but for efficient vertical partitioning
as Simon mentioned.

Best regards,
Otto

2007/4/12, Jim Nasby <decibel(at)decibel(dot)org>:
>
> I agree with others that the way that query is constructed is a bit
> odd, but it does bring another optimization to mind: when doing an
> inner-join between a parent and child table when RI is defined
> between them, if the query only refers to the child table you can
> drop the parent table from the join, because each row in the child
> table must have one and only one row in the parent.
>
> Use-case: I'll often use views to make it easier to query several
> related tables, but not all queries against the views need to hit
> every table. IE: if a table has several status fields that have RI to
> parent tables that describe what each status is, you sometimes will
> query for the status description, sometimes not.
>
> I suspect that checking to see if tables have the right unique keys
> or RI would add a noticeable amount of extra work to query planning,
> so we might want a GUC to disable it.
>
> On Apr 7, 2007, at 12:45 PM, Ottó Havasvölgyi wrote:
>
> > Sorry, I have left out the PK requirement.
> > What Nicolas wrote is right, I also use an O/R mapper and
> > inheritance is solved with vertical partitioning. The tables are
> > connected to each other with the PK. And the mapper defines views
> > for each class with left joins. The mapper generates queries based
> > on these views. A high fraction of the joins would be eliminated
> > almost in every query.
> >
> > My simple example:
> >
> > Class hierarchy and fields:
> > Shape (ID, X, Y)
> > |
> > +-Circle (ID, Radius)
> > |
> > +-Rectangle (ID, Width, Height)
> >
> > The mapper creates 3 tables with the columns next to the class name.
> > And it creates 3 views. One of them:
> >
> > RectangleView: SELECT r."ID" as "ID", s."X" as "X", s."Y" as "Y",
> > r."Width" as "Width", r."Height" as "Height" FROM "Rectangle" r
> > LEFT JOIN "Shape" s ON ( r.ID=s.ID)
> >
> > Now if I query Rectangle object IDs, whose Width is greater than 5,
> > it will generate this:
> >
> > SELECT "ID" FROM RectangleView WHERE "Width">5
> >
> > In this case I don't need to left join the Shape table, because X
> > and Y columns are not used.
> >
> >
> > The other typical situation is when I execute more complex, not-O/
> > Rmapper-generated SQL commands based on these views for reporting.
> > For example the average width of rectangles whose height is greater
> > than 10.
> > ----------------------------------------------------
> >
> > This optimization should be also applied to subqueries.
> >
> >
> >
> > Is this optimization relatively easy to introduce?
> >
> > I would gladly work on this, but unfortunately I don't know the
> > codebase at all.
> > I would really appreciate if someone competent implemented this
> > feature in 8.4.
> >
> > Thank you in advance,
> > Otto
> >
>
> --
> Jim Nasby jim(at)nasby(dot)net
> EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com 512.569.9461 (cell)
>
>
>