In our one of production database, we have 4 column table and there are no PK,UK constraints on it. only one notnull constraint on one column. The inserts are slow on this table and when I checked the indexes , there is one index which is built on all columns.
It is a normal table and not IOT. I really don't see a need of all column index, but wondering why the developers has created it?
Appreciate your thoughts?
It might be usefull, i.e. if you (mainly) query all columns oracle doesn't have to access the table at all, but can get all the data from the index. Though inserts take longer because a larger index has to be maintained by the dbms everytime.
One case where it could be useful is,
Say for example, you are trying to check the existence of records in this table and for that you have to have joins on all four columns. So in such a case if you have written a correlated query like below,
SELECT <something>
FROM table_1 t1
WHERE EXISTS
(SELECT 1 FROM table_t2 t2 where t1.c1=t2.c1 and t1.c2=t2.c2 and t1.c3=t2.c3 and t1.c4=t2.c4)
Apart from above case, it looks an error to me from developer's side.
Indexes are good to better query optimization but causes slow updates/inserts because the indexes needs to be updated at each modification.
If these tables first use is querying and inserts happens only in a specific periods like a batch at the beginning or the end of the day only, then you can remove the indexes before updating tables and then restore them.
In addition, all the queries all these tables need to be analysed to see which indexes are useful and which are not?
Anyway, You need to ask developers before removing these indexes.
Related
Consider this Oracle docs about indexes, this about speed of insert and this question on StackOverflow lead me to conclusion that:
Indexes helps us locate information faster
Primary and Unique Keys are indexed automatically
Inserting with indexes can cause worse performance
However every time indexes are discussed there are only SELECT operations shown as examples.
My question is: are indexes used in INSERT and UPDATE operations? When and how?
My suggestions are:
UPDATE can use index in WHERE clause (if the column in the clause has index)
INSERT can use index when uses SELECT (but in this case, index is from another table)
or probably when checking integrity constraints
but I don't have such deep knowledge of using indexes.
For UPDATE statements, index can be used by the optimiser if it deems the index can speed it up. The index would be used to locate the rows to be updated. The index is also a table in a manner of speaking, so if the indexed column is getting updated, it obviously needs to UPDATE the index as well. On the other hand if you're running an update without a WHERE clause the optimiser may choose not to use an index as it has to access the whole table, a full table scan may be more efficient (but may still have to update the index). The optimiser makes those decisions at runtime based on several parameters such as if there are valid stats against the tables and indexes in question, how much data is affected, what type of hardware, etc.
For INSERT statements though the INSERT itself does not need the index, the index will also need to be 'inserted into', so will need to be accessed by oracle. Another case where INSERT can cause the index to be used is an INSERT like this:
INSERT INTO mytable (mycolmn)
SELECT mycolumn + 10 FROM mytable;
Insert statement has no direct benefit for index. But more index on a table cause slower insert operation. Think about a table that has no index on it and if you want to add a row on it, it will find table block that has enough free space and store that row. But if that table has indexes on it database must make sure that these new rows also found via indexes, So to add new rows on a table that has indexes, also need to entry in indexes too. That multiplies the insert operation. So more index you have, more time you need to insert new rows.
For update it depends on whether you update indexed column or not. If you are not updating indexed column then performance should not be affected. Index can also speed up a update statements if the where conditions can make use of indexes.
Let's assume I have two tables of the same row count. Both tables contain a column that allows for 1-1 join between them.
If those tables were turned into one table instead and thus JOIN statement eliminated from the query, would there be any performance benefit of that?
Another example... Let's assume I have table with 10 columns. From that table I created new table but only taking one column. If I issue statement selecting that one column with WHERE predicate on the same column would there be any performance difference in executing this query on both tables?
What I'm trying to get to is if performance is the same in above cases is it safe to say tables are only containers wrapping number of columns together?
I did run couple tests but with non conclusive results.
Let's assume I have two tables of the same row count. Both tables
contain a column that allows for 1-1 join between them. If those
tables were turned into one table instead and thus JOIN statement
eliminated from the query, would there be any performance benefit of
that?
Performing that join for every query is of course more expensive than materializing the table once and then reading it. So yes, there would be a performance benefit.
Another example... Let's assume I have table with 10 columns. From
that table I created new table but only taking one column. If I issue
statement selecting that one column with WHERE predicate on the same
column would there be any performance difference in executing this
query on both tables?
No, there would be no difference, since tables are represented as collections of columns, which are each stored in their own file.
What I'm trying to get to is if performance is the same in above cases
is it safe to say tables are only containers wrapping number of
columns together?
That is indeed safe to say.
I'm working with an application that has a large amount of outdated data clogging up a table in my databank. Ideally, I'd want to delete all entries in the table whose reference date is too old:
delete outdatedTable where referenceDate < :deletionCutoffDate
If this statement were to be run, it would take ages to complete, so I'd rather break it up into chunks with the following:
delete outdatedTable where referenceData < :deletionCutoffDate and rownum <= 10000
In testing, this works suprisingly slowly. The following query, however, runs dramatically faster:
delete outdatedTable where rownum <= 10000
I've been reading through multiple blogs and similar questions on StackOverflow, but I haven't yet found a straightforward description of how/whether using rownum affects the Oracle optimizer when there are other Where clauses in the query. In my case, it seems to me as if Oracle checks
referenceData < :deletionCutoffDate
on every single row, executes a massive Select on all matching rows, and only then filters out the top 10000 rows to return. Is this in fact the case? If so, is there any clever way to make Oracle stop checking the Where clause as soon as it's found enough matching rows?
How about a different approach without so much DML on the table. As a permanent solution for future you could go for table partitioning.
Create a new table with required partition(s).
Move ONLY the required rows from your existing table to the new partitioned table.
Once the new table is populated, add the required constraints and indexes.
Drop the old table.
In future, you would just need to DROP the old partitions.
CTAS(create table as select) is another way, however, if you want to have a new table with partition, you would have to go for exchange partition concept.
First of all, you should read about SQL statement's execution plan and learn how to explain in. It will help you to find answers on such questions.
Generally, one single delete is more effective than several chunked. It's main disadvantage is extremal using of undo tablespace.
If you wish to delete most rows of table, much faster way usially a trick:
create table new_table as select * from old_table where date >= :date_limit;
drop table old_table;
rename table new_table to old_table;
... recreate indexes and other stuff ...
If you wish to do it more than once, partitioning is a much better way. If table partitioned by date, you can select actual date quickly and you can drop partion with outdated data in milliseconds.
At last, paritioning if a way to dismiss 'deleting outdated records' at all. Sometimes we need old data, and it's sad if we delete it by own hands. With paritioning you can archive outdated partitions outside of the database, but connects them when you need to access old data.
This is an old request, but I'd like to show another approach (also using partitions).
Depending on what you consider old, you could create corresponding partitions (optimally exactly two; one current, one old; but you could just as well make more), e.g.:
PARTITION BY LIST ( mod(referenceDate,2) )
(
PARTITION year_odd VALUES (1),
PARTITION year_even VALUES (0)
);
This could as well be months (Jan, Feb, ... Dec), decades (XX0X, XX1X, ... XX9X), half years (first_half, second_half), etc. Anything circular.
Then whenever you want to get rid of old data, truncate:
ALTER TABLE mytable TRUNCATE PARTITION year_even;
delete from your_table
where PK not in
(select PK from your_table where rounum<=...) -- these records you want to leave
Shouldn't the following query work fine for deleting duplicate rows in oracle
SQL> delete from sessions o
where 1<=(select count(*)
from sessions i
where i.id!=o.id
and o.data=i.data);
It seems to delete all the duplication rows!! (I wish to keep 1 tough)
Your statement doesn't work because your table has at least one row where two different ID's share the same values for DATA.
Although your intent may be to look for differing values of DATA ID by ID, what your SQL is saying is in fact set-based: "Look at my table as a whole. If there are any rows in the table such that the DATA is the same but the ID's are different (i.e., that inner COUNT(*) is anything greater than 0), then DELETE every row in the table."
You may be attempting specific, row-based logic, but your statement is big-picture (set-based). There's nothing in it to single out duplicate rows, as there is in the solution Ollie has linked to, for example.
I have two databases with identical table layouts. There are a dozen or so tables of interest. They are a number of FK between them.
I have been asked to write a stored procedure to copy data from database A to database B based on the PK of the parent table at the top of the hierarchy. I may receive just one value, or a list of values. I'm supposed to select all records from database A that match the value(s) and insert/update them into database B. This includes all the records in the child tables too.
My questions is whats the best(most efficent/ best practice) way to do this?
Should I write a dozen select from... insert into... statements?
Should I join the tables together an try to insert into all the tables at the same time?
Thanks!
Additional info:
The record should be inserted if it is not already there. (based on the PK of the respective table). Otherwise it should be updated.
Obviously I need to traverse down to all child tables, so There would only be one record to copy in the parent table, but the child table might have 10, and the child's child table might have 500. I would of course need to update the record if it already existed, insert if it does not for the child tables too...
UPDATE:
I think it would make the solution simpler if I just deleted all records related to the top level key, and then insert all the new records rather than trying to do updates.
So I guess the questions is it best to just do a dozen:
delete from ... where ... in ...
select from ... where ... in ...
insert into...
or is it better to do some kinda of fancy joins to do all the inserts in one sql statement?
I would do this by disabling all the foreign key constraints, then doing a set of MERGE statements to deal with the updates and inserts, then enable all the constraints.
Think about logging. How much redo do you want to generate?
You might find that it's quicker and better to truncate all the target tables and then do inserts of everything with nolog. Could be simpler than the merges.
One major main alternative would be to drop all the target tables and use export and import. Might be a lot faster.
A second alternative would be to use materialized views, particularly if you don't need to do updates on the target tables. That way, Oracle does all the heavy lifting for you. You can force integrity by choosing refresh groups carefully.
There are several ways to deal with this business problem. A PL/SQL program may not be the best.