Re: Slow query after upgrade to 8.4

> Hello postgres wizards,
>
> We recently upgraded from 8.1.5 to 8.4
> We have a query (slow_query.sql) which took about 9s on 8.1.5
> On 8.4, the same query takes 17.7 minutes.
>
> The code which generated this query is written to support the
> calculation of arbitrary arithmetic expressions across "variables" and
> "data" within our application. The example query is a sum of three
> "variables", but please note that because the code supports arbitrary
> arithmetic, we do not use an aggregate function like sum()
>
> We have collected as much information as we could and zipped it up here:
>
> http://pgsql.privatepaste.com/download/a3SdI8j2km
>
> Thank you very much in advance for any suggestions you may have,
> Jared Beck

Tom Lane already replied, so I'm posting just parsed explain plans - I've
created that before noticing the reply, and I think it might be useful.

good (8.1): http://explain.depesz.com/s/1dT
bad (8.4): http://explain.depesz.com/s/seT

As you can see, the real problem is the 'index scan / sort'.

regards
Tomas