Re: [HACKERS] indexes and floats

Vadim writes:
> David Gould wrote:
... ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> > In Illustra this is called "variant". A variant function (eg random()) must
> > be evaluated each time. A nonvariant function can have it's result cached
> ^^^^^^^^^
> I don't like the idea to evaluate random() in WHERE x = random()
> for _each_ tuple. The same for WHERE insert_date = now() - 5
> /* 5 days */. Imho, these functions should be evaluated ONCE
> by executor, but EACH time when executor starts. There is big
> difference between evaluation in parser/planner and in executor
> due to ability (currently, very limitted) to have prepared plans
> (parsed/planned). And nothing more. Imho, queries must return
> consistent set of data: if I want to get rows inserted 5 days
> ago and run query with WHERE insert_date = now() - 5 near 12PM
> then I risk to get inconsistent set of rows if now() will be
> evaluated for EACH tuple.

Perhaps random was a bad example, the point I was trying to make was that
it is a function that is not wholely determined by its arguments.

However, I disagree with your contention about random() and now() also. Think
about the statement

insert into samples
select random(), xval, yval from points;

The intent being to associate a random value with each of the x,y pairs...

> > Also, perhaps instead of doing constant folding in the parser, consider makeing
> > it part of rewrite. This pass would just traverse the tree looking for
> > functions with constant arguements and would pre-evaluate them and and
> > save the result in the wherever the cacheable results would be stored. No
> > special case required except that the optimizer would have to notice that
> > a pre-computed result was available to use as a key value.
>
> This is bad for performance.

What_ is the "This" that is bad for performance? It is not clear what you
mean here.

Do you mean memoizing? If so, I strongly disagree, and there is a ton of
work on this that supports me.

Or do you mean adding the cacheable function optimization to rewrite? If so,
why is this a problem? I am assuming that this can be piggybacked on one
of the existing expression tree traversals, so I just don't see how
this creates more work than doing it in the parser.

> Vadim
>

-dg

David Gould dg(at)illustra(dot)com 510.628.3783 or 510.305.9468
Informix Software (No, really) 300 Lakeside Drive Oakland, CA 94612
- If simplicity worked, the world would be overrun with insects. -