This question already has answers here:
PL/SQL Performance Tuning for LIKE '%...%' Wildcard Queries
(5 answers)
Closed 5 years ago.
I have a table that has among others, two columns
SPONSOR_ID number
NR_CERTIFICATE char(11)
And there's a index for these two columns
NR_CERTIFICATE + SPONSOR_ID
This table has hundreds of thousands of rows, and the problem is, when we filter by a specific certificate, the select takes nanoseconds as expected:
SELECT * FROM TBL_XXX WHERE NR_CERTIFICATE = '33300123456'
the problem is when we use LIKE to filter:
SELECT * FROM TBL_XXX WHERE NR_CERTIFICATE LIKE '%123456'
Then the select takes around 15 seconds.
I know that in this case, the index is discarded and a table scan takes place. Is there a way to force ORACLE to use the index in this case? Or is there a way to speed up this select?
You can "force" the index use with optimizer hints :
SELECT /*+INDEX(TBL_XXX,YOUR_INDEX_NAME)*/ *
FROM TBL_XXX
WHERE NR_CERTIFICATE LIKE '%123456'
That answers the question but not sure if that will solve your issue. You should show the table struct and explain plan for further help
If you force the use of the index with an hint, Oracle will do a full index scan.
It will not be interesting for you.If your query has a sense, maybe your data model is not appropriate. Maybe a good way is to split you column nr_certificate in two columns. If it's possible, it will be easy to you after to have the good and quick query.
Related
I have a table with column status. It is a string nullable column. I also have an index on this field only. Why is the following query not using the index?
select /*+ index(m IDX_STATUS) */ * from messages m where m.status = :1
Try running the query without named (bind) parameters. Sometimes that makes a big difference.
select * from messages m where m.status = 'P'
It may turn out that you don't even need a hint to trigger index usage.
A possible explanation is that the column contains many equal values, for example 90% of rows has status = 'D' (low-cardinality column). Now we can understand Oracle, why it did not use the index :) It simply doesn't make sense on value 'D', but is reasonable for other values. I would prefer Oracle to consider my hint (I know better), but that seems undoable.
In general there is an extremely useful guide Oracle SQL Tuning Guide: The index is being ignored. Still it does not mention the situation, where omitting bind parameter makes the problem go away. That's why I insisted on asking the question on SO.
This question already has an answer here:
Alternate method to global temp tables for Oracle Stored Procedure
(1 answer)
Closed 8 years ago.
I need a way to temporarily store and use multiple values returned from an Oracle query. In SQL Server, I stored my values in a temp table, did my work, then dropped the table. I'm discovering the Oracle equivalent isn't as clear cut.
Here's a SQL Server example of what I'm trying to do:
select id into #temp from SomeTable where SomeColumn = 'Some Value'
:
(do whatever I need to do with #temp data)
:
drop table #temp
I can code my way around SQL Server pretty well, but am almost clueless when it comes to Oracle syntax. I've been reading various Oracle references, and they haven't been very helpful. I did read that Oracle temp tables work differently than SQL, and are often not recommended.
I'm looking into the temp table route, but if there's a better way to do this that doesn't use temp tables, I'm all ears. Anyone know a better way to do this in Oracle?
Thanks in advance.
As with many things, that depends. It depends on how much data you'll be retrieving and how you want to use it. If you don't have too much data to work with ("too much" meaning, oh, say, more than a couple thousand rows) and you want to manipulate the data procedurally, i.e. in a PL/SQL procedure or script, AND you don't want to access it using DML, i.e. you don't want to say something like SELECT * FROM your_temp_data... than loading the data into a PL/SQL collection, as #EgorSkriptunoff mentions above, might be a workable solution.
However, if the temp data is large (more than a couple thousand rows) and/or you need to be able to do something like SELECT * FROM your_temp_data... then your best bet it to use Oracle's Global Temp Tables. A GTT is a table which is used to hold data which should only last as long as either a single transaction or a complete session (i.e. as long as you're attached to the database). Documentation here and here, and another write-up on them here.
Share and enjoy.
The Postgres 9 docs state:
38.5.3. Executing a Query with a Single-Row Result
SELECT
select_expressions INTO [STRICT] target FROM
...; ....(doc'd othe details)...
then target will be set to the first row returned by the query....
Any result rows after the first row are discarded.
My question is: are the rows discarded or is there really an implicit LIMIT 1?
So, LIMIT 1 would not improve the performance of SELECT INTO returning many rows, or would it?
SELECT INTO reads exactly one or two rows (with the STRICT option). So LIMIT is useless.
From what I know using an ORDER BY and a LIMIT can often prevent shortening the query as it still needs to find all rows to perform the order by before it limits.
-Chris Shoemaker
I have a table in oracle 10g with around 51 columns and 25 Million number of records in it. When I execute a simple select query on the table to extract 3 columns I am getting the cost too high around 182k. So I need to reduce the cost effect. Is there any possible way to reduce it?
Query:
select a,b,c
from X
a - char
b - varchar2
c - varchar2
TIA
In cases like this it's difficult to give good advice without knowing why you would need to query 25 million records. As #Ryan says, normally you'd have a WHERE clause; or, perhaps you're extracting the results into another table or something?
A covering index (i.e. over a,b,c) would probably be the only way to make any difference to the performance - the query could then do a fast full index scan, and would get many more records per block retrieved.
Well...if you know you only need a subset of those values, throwing a WHERE clause on there would obviously help out quite a bit. If you truly need all 25 million records, and the table is properly indexed, then I'd say there's really not much you can do.
Yes, better telling the purpose of the select as jeffrey Kemp said.
If normal select, you just need to give index to your fields that mostly you can do, provide table statistic on index (DBMS_STATS.GATHER_TABLE_STATS), check the statistic of each field to be sure your index is right (Read: http://bit.ly/qR12Ul).
If need to load to another table, use cursor, limit the records of each executing and load to the table via the bulk insert (FORALL technique).
I'm trying to understand how no_index actually speeds up a query and haven't been able to find documentation online to explain it.
For example I have this query that ran extremely slow
select *
from <tablename>
where field1_ like '%someGenericString%' and
field1_ <> 'someSpecificString' and
Action_='_someAction_' and
Timestamp_ >= trunc(sysdate - 2)
And one of our DBAs was able to speed it up significantly by doing this
select /*+ NO_INDEX(TAB_000000000019) */ *
from <tablename>
where field1_ like '%someGenericString%' and
field1_ <> 'someSpecificString' and
Action_='_someAction_' and
Timestamp_ >= trunc(sysdate - 2)
And I can't figure out why? I would like to figure out why this works so I can see if I can apply it to another query (this one a join) to speed it up because it's taking even longer to run.
Thanks!
** Update **
Here's what I know about the table in the example.
It's a 'partitioned table'
TAB_000000000019 is the table not a column in it
field1 is indexed
Oracle's optimizer makes judgements on how best to run a query, and to do this it uses a large number of statistics gathered about the tables and indexes. Based on these stats, it decides whether or not to use an index, or to just do a table scan, for example.
Critically, these stats are not automatically up-to-date, because they can be very expensive to gather. In cases where the stats are not up to date, the optimizer can make the "wrong" decision, and perhaps use an index when it would actually be faster to do a table scan.
If this is known by the DBA/developer, they can give hints (which is what NO_INDEX is) to the optimizer, telling it not to use a given index because it's known to slow things down, often due to out-of-date stats.
In your example, TAB_000000000019 will refer to an index or a table (I'm guessing an index, since it looks like an auto-generated name).
It's a bit of a black art, to be honest, but that's the gist of it, as I understand things.
Disclaimer: I'm not a DBA, but I've dabbled in that area.
Per your update: If field1 is the only indexed field, then the original query was likely doing a fast full scan on that index (i.e. reading through every entry in the index and checking against the filter conditions on field1), then using those results to find the rows in the table and filter on the other conditions. The conditions on field1 are such that an index unique scan or range scan (i.e. looking up specific values or ranges of values in the index) would not be possible.
Likely the optimizer chose this path because there are two filter predicates on field1. The optimizer would calculate estimated selectivity for each of these and then multiply them to determine their combined selectivity. But in many cases this will significantly underestimate the number of rows that will match the condition.
The NO_INDEX hint eliminates this option from the optimizer's consideration, so it essentially goes with the plan it thinks is next best -- possibly in this case using partition elimination based on one of the other filter conditions in the query.
Using an index degrades query performance if it results in more disk IO compared to querying the table with an index.
This can be demonstrated with a simple table:
create table tq84_ix_test (
a number(15) primary key,
b varchar2(20),
c number(1)
);
The following block fills 1 Million records into this table. Every 250th record is filled with a rare value in column b while all the others are filled with frequent value:
declare
rows_inserted number := 0;
begin
while rows_inserted < 1000000 loop
if mod(rows_inserted, 250) = 0 then
insert into tq84_ix_test values (
-1 * rows_inserted,
'rare value',
1);
rows_inserted := rows_inserted + 1;
else
begin
insert into tq84_ix_test values (
trunc(dbms_random.value(1, 1e15)),
'frequent value',
trunc(dbms_random.value(0,2))
);
rows_inserted := rows_inserted + 1;
exception when dup_val_on_index then
null;
end;
end if;
end loop;
end;
/
An index is put on the column
create index tq84_index on tq84_ix_test (b);
The same query, but once with index and once without index, differ in performance. Check it out for yourself:
set timing on
select /*+ no_index(tq84_ix_test) */
sum(c)
from
tq84_ix_test
where
b = 'frequent value';
select /*+ index(tq84_ix_test tq84_index) */
sum(c)
from
tq84_ix_test
where
b = 'frequent value';
Why is it? In the case without the index, all database blocks are read, in sequential order. Usually, this is costly and therefore considered bad. In normal situation, with an index, such a "full table scan" can be reduced to reading say 2 to 5 index database blocks plus reading the one database block that contains the record that the index points to. With the example here, it is different altogether: the entire index is read and for (almost) each entry in the index, a database block is read, too. So, not only is the entire table read, but also the index. Note, that this behaviour would differ if c were also in the index because in that case Oracle could choose to get the value of c from the index instead of going the detour to the table.
So, to generalize the issue: if the index does not pick few records then it might be beneficial to not use it.
Something to note about indexes is that they are precomputed values based on the row order and the data in the field. In this specific case you say that field1 is indexed and you are using it in the query as follows:
where field1_ like '%someGenericString%' and
field1_ <> 'someSpecificString'
In the query snippet above the filter is on both a variable piece of data since the percent (%) character cradles the string and then on another specific string. This means that the default Oracle optimization that doesn't use an optimizer hint will try to find the string inside the indexed field first and also find if the data it is a sub-string of the data in the field, then it will check that the data doesn't match another specific string. After the index is checked the other columns are then checked. This is a very slow process if repeated.
The NO_INDEX hint proposed by the DBA removes the optimizer's preference to use an index and will likely allow the optimizer to choose the faster comparisons first and not necessarily force index comparison first and then compare other columns.
The following is slow because it compares the string and its sub-strings:
field1_ like '%someGenericString%'
While the following is faster because it is specific:
field1_ like 'someSpecificString'
So the reason to use the NO_INDEX hint is if you have comparisons on the index that slow things down. If the index field is compared against more specific data then the index comparison is usually faster.
I say usually because when the indexed field contains more redundant data like in the example #Atish mentions above, it will have to go through a long list of comparison negatives before a positive comparison is returned. Hints produce varying results because both the database design and the data in the tables affect how fast a query performs. So in order to apply hints you need to know if the individual comparisons you hint to the optimizer will be faster on your data set. There are no shortcuts in this process. Applying hints should happen after proper SQL queries have been written because hints should be based on the real data.
Check out this hints reference: http://docs.oracle.com/cd/B19306_01/server.102/b14211/hintsref.htm
To add to what Rene' and Dave have said, this is what I have actually observed in a production situation:
If the condition(s) on the indexed field returns too many matches, Oracle is better off doing a Full Table Scan.
We had a report program querying a very large indexed table - the index was on a region code and the query specified the exact region code, so Oracle CBO uses the index.
Unfortunately, one specific region code accounted for 90% of the tables entries.
As long as the report was run for one of the other (minor) region codes, it completed in less than 30 minutes, but for the major region code it took many hours.
Adding a hint to the SQL to force a full table scan solved the problem.
Hope this helps.
I had read somewhere that using a % in front of query like '%someGenericString%' will lead to Oracle ignoring the INDEX on that field. Maybe that explains why the query is running slow.