Re: strange explain analyze output

Jeff Davis <pgsql(at)j-davis(dot)com> writes:
> This is in version 8.3.1 (I also tried 8.3.3).
> It looks like the sort is producing more rows than the input. The hash
> aggregate produces 10k, but the sort produces 10M.

> Merge Join (cost=199211.12..660979.37 rows=9998773 width=12) (actual
> time=8887.540..27866.804 rows=10000000 loops=1)
> Merge Cond: (public.t.a = public.t.a)
> -> Index Scan using t_a_idx on t (cost=0.00..286789.72 rows=9998773
> width=8) (actual time=19.784..5676.407 rows=10000000 loops=1)
> -> Sort (cost=199211.12..199217.72 rows=2641 width=8) (actual
> time=8867.749..11692.015 rows=10000000 loops=1)
> Sort Key: public.t.a
> Sort Method: quicksort Memory: 647kB
> -> HashAggregate (cost=199001.60..199034.61 rows=2641
> width=8) (actual time=8854.848..8859.306 rows=10001 loops=1)

What this shows is that the HashAggregate emitted 10001 output rows,
which necessarily was the number of rows sorted. The Sort node was
(successfully) called on to produce an output row 10000000 times.

The reason that these statements are not inconsistent is that the
Sort is the inner relation for a mergejoin. In the presence of
duplicate keys in the outer relation, a mergejoin will "rewind" and
rescan duplicate keys in the inner relation; that is, any row in the
inner relation will be fetched approximately as many times as it has
matches in the outer relation. So it looks like you've got roughly
1000X duplication in these tables?

(BTW, the planner knows that this is expensive and will avoid mergejoins
when there are many duplicate keys. But apparently a hash join seemed
even worse for the stats of this particular pair of tables.)

regards, tom lane