order of records in result set - oracle

May order of rows in unordered query (like select * from smth) be different in different queries (in the same and not same session) if there are no updates to database table?

The order or rows returned from a query should never be relied upon unless you have included a specific ORDER BY clause in your query.
You may find that even without the ORDER BY the results appear in the same order but you could not guarentee this will be the case and to rely on it would be foolish especially when the ORDER BY clause will fulfill your requirements.
See this question: Default row ordering for select query in oracle
It has an excellent quote from Tom Kyte about record ordering.
So to answer your question: Yes, the order of rows in an unordered query may be different between queries and sessions as it relies on multiple factors of which you may have no control (if you are not a DBA etc.)
Hope this helps...

Related

Recursive database viewing

I have this situation. Starting from a table, I have to check all the records that match a key. If records are found, I have to check another table using a key from the first table and so on, more on less on five levels. There is a way to do this in a recursive way, or I have to write all the code "by hand"? The language I am using is Visual Fox Pro. If this is is not possible, is it al least possible to use recursion to popolate a treeview?
You can set a relation between tables. For example:
USE table_1.dbf IN 0 SHARED
USE table_2.dbf IN 0 SHARED
SET ORDER TO TAG key_field OF table_2.cdx IN table_2
SET RELATION TO key_field INTO table_2 ADDITIVE IN table_1
First two commands open table_1 and table_2. Then you have to set the order/index of table_2. If you don't have an index for the key field then this will not work. The final command sets the relation between the two tables on the key field.
From here you can browse both tables and table_2's records will be filtered based on table_1's key field. Hope this helps.
If the tables have similar structure or you only need to look at a few fields, you could write a recursive routine that receives the name of the table, the key to check, and perhaps the fields you need to check as parameters. The tricky part, I guess, is knowing what to pass down to the next call.
I don't think I can offer any more advice without at least seeing some table structures.
Sorry for answering so late, but the problem was of course that the recursion wasn't a viable solution since I had to search inside multiple tables. So I resolved by doing a simple 2-Level search in the tables that I needed.
Thank you very much for the help, and sorry again for answering so late.

SQLite - Exploiting Sorted Indexes

This is probably simple, but I can't find the answer.
I'm trying to minimise the overhead of selecting records using ORDER BY
My understanding is that in...
SELECT gorilla, chimp FROM apes ORDER BY bananas LIMIT 10;
...the full set of matching records is retrieved so that that the ORDER BY can be actioned, even if I only want the top ten records. This makes sense.
Trying to eliminate that overhead, I looked at the possibility of storing the records in a pre-defined order, but that would only work until insertions/deletions took place, upon which I would have to re-build the table. Not viable.
I found an option in SQLite (I assume it also exists in other SQLs) to create a sorted index (https://www.sqlite.org/lang_createindex.html)...
CREATE INDEX index_name ON apes (bananas DESC);
...which I ASSUME to mean that the index (not the table) is sorted in descending order and will remain so after updates .
My question is - how do I exploit this? The SQLite documentation is a bit meh in this regard. Is there some kind of "SELECT FROM index" or equivalent? Or does the fact that a sorted index exists on a column mean that any results from querying that column will be returned in the order of the index rather than the order of the column?
Or am I missing something entirely?
I'm working with SQLite3, queried by PHP 7.1
ORDER BY with LIMIT is a little bit more efficient than a plain ORDER BY because only the first few rows need to be completely sorted.
Anyway, for a single-column index, the sort order (ASC or DESC) is pointless because SQLite can step through an index either forwards or backwards.
Indexes are used automatically when SQLite estimates that they would be useful.
To check what actually happens, run EXPLAIN QUERY PLAN (or set .eqp on in the sqlite3 shell).

How do I build effecient SQL filters?

After taking an advanced T-SQL performance/query tuning class, something that I thought I remembered hearing was that you can speed up some queries just a little bit if you put your date(time) filters first.
Ex:
WHERE
RunDate = '12/1/2015' AND
OtherFilters = etc...
But does this really only count if I have indexes in place on these columns I filter on for this table?
So to add to this just a little, should I be building my filters off of the indexes on any tables referenced in the query? Such that my first filters of the query are based on my indexes?
Ex:
WHERE
ID > 1000 AND
RunDate <= '1/1/206' AND
OtherFilters = etc...
Where ID and RunDate are part of my indexes/primary key.
The order of filters in WHERE clause does not matter. As long as you have index on the fields, SQL Server knows how to use your filters.
Assume you have index on (ID, RunDt) and you have both ID and RunDt in your WHERE clause. SQL Server first filters the data on ID and then from that subset rows, will filter on RunDt.
This scenario may change if you have other indexes depends on selectivity of your data.
Also if you have clustered index on RunDt, SQL will first filter on RunDt and then ID.
You don't need to worry about the order of your filters in WHERE clause, as long as you have the right order of columns in your index definition.
TSQL is just a logical representation
The query optimizer will set the actual execution order that is most efficient
It messes up some times but for the most part it is spot on
If you have a clustered PK on ID then this will typically be done first
Appears even the OP is confused about the question
Can only answer the stated question
But does this really only count if I have indexes in place on these
columns I filter on for this table?
The order in the where does not matter for columns with indexes
The order in the where does not matter for columns without indexes
The order in the where does not matter

Should I apply string manipulation after or before joining tables in Oracle

I have two tables need to inner join, one table has relatively small number of records compared to the other one. I need to apply some string manipulation to the smaller table, and my question is can I apply the string function after the join, or should I apply them in a sub query and then join the sub select to the bigger table?
An example would be something like this:
Option 1:
SELECT SUBSTR("SMALL_TABLE"."COL_NAME",x,y) "NEW_COL" FROM "BIG_TABLE"
JOIN "SMALL_TABLE" ON ...
Option 2:
SELECT "NEW_COL"
FROM "BIG_TABLE"
JOIN
(
SELECT SUBSTR("SMALL_TABLE"."COL_NAME",x,y) "NEW_COL" FROM "SMALL_TABLE"
) "T"
ON ...
Which is better for performance option 1 or 2?
I am using oracle 11g.
Regardless of how you structure the query, Oracle's optimizer is free to evaluate the function before or after the join. Assuming that the string manipulation is only done as part of the projection step (i.e. it is done only in the SELECT clause and is not used as a predicate in the WHERE clause), I would expect that Oracle would apply the SUBSTR before joining the tables if you used either formulation because it would then have to apply the function to fewer rows (though it can probably treat the SUBSTR as a deterministic call and cache the results if it applies the function after the join).
As with any query optimization question, the first step is always to generate a query plan and see if the different queries actually produce different plans. I would expect the plans to be identical and, thus, the performance to be identical. But there are any number of reasons that one of the two options might produce different plans on your system given your optimizer statistics, initialization parameters, etc.
It is better to apply the operations before doing the join and then joining and querying for the final result. This is called query optimization.
By doing so for ur question you will perform lesser operations when "join"ing as u will be eliminating the useless rows beforehand.
Lots of examples here : http://beginner-sql-tutorial.com/sql-query-tuning.htm
and this is the best one I could find : http://www.cse.iitb.ac.in/~sudarsha/db-book/slide-dir/ch14.ppt‎

LINQ - Using where or join - Performance difference?

Based on this question:
What is difference between Where and Join in linq?
My question is following:
Is there a performance difference in the following two statements:
from order in myDB.OrdersSet
from person in myDB.PersonSet
from product in myDB.ProductSet
where order.Persons_Id==person.Id && order.Products_Id==product.Id
select new { order.Id, person.Name, person.SurName, product.Model,UrunAdı=product.Name };
and
from order in myDB.OrdersSet
join person in myDB.PersonSet on order.Persons_Id equals person.Id
join product in myDB.ProductSet on order.Products_Id equals product.Id
select new { order.Id, person.Name, person.SurName, product.Model,UrunAdı=product.Name };
I would always use the second one just because it´s more clear.
My question is now, is the first one slower than the second one?
Does it build a cartesic product and filters it afterwards with the where clauses ?
Thank you.
It entirely depends on the provider you're using.
With LINQ to Objects, it will absolutely build the Cartesian product and filter afterwards.
For out-of-process query providers such as LINQ to SQL, it depends on whether it's smart enough to realise that it can translate it into a SQL join. Even if LINQ to SQL doesn't, it's likely that the query engine actually performing the query will do so - you'd have to check with the relevant query plan tool for your database to see what's actually going to happen.
Side-note: multiple "from" clauses don't always result in a Cartesian product - the contents of one "from" can depend on the current element of earlier ones, e.g.
from file in files
from line in ReadLines(file)
...
My question is now, is the first one slower than the second one? Does it build a cartesic product and filters it afterwards with the where clauses ?
If the collections are in memory, then yes. There is no query optimizer for LinqToObjects - it simply does what the programmer asks in the order that is asked.
If the collections are in a database (which is suspected due to the myDB variable), then no. The query is translated into sql and sent off to the database where there is a query optimizer. This optimizer will generate an execution plan. Since both queries are asking for the same logical result, it is reasonable to expect the same efficient plan will be generated for both. The only ways to be certain are to
inspect the execution plans
or measure the IO (SET STATISTICS IO ON).
Is there a performance difference
If you find yourself in a scenario where you have to ask, you should cultivate tools with which to measure and discover the truth for yourself. Measure - not ask.

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