On 25/08/2024 17:35, David G. Johnston wrote:
On Sunday, August 25, 2024, Tobias Hoffmann <ldev-list@thax.hardliners.org> wrote:
3) Problematic example:
# EXPLAIN SELECT * FROM tbl1 JOIN tbl2 ON tbl2.site_id = tbl1.site_id WHERE tbl1.site_id = 1 OR tbl1.site_id IS NULL;
The “is null” predicate in this query is doing nothing as your next comment alludes to; you will produce no rows out of the join with a null site_id due to the use of the equals operator in the join.
Well, that's why I said: "keep in mind that this example is as simplified as possible"...
Even though `tbl1.site_id = 1` is – in this case – completely equivalent to `tbl1.site_id = 1 OR tbl1.site_id IS NULL` – the first one is completely pushed down, but the second is not.
A more complete example might look more like this:
CREATE VIEW "subview1" AS
SELECT tbl1.site_id, ... JOIN ... ON tbl1.site_id = tbl2.site_id WHERE ...;
CREATE VIEW "view1" AS
SELECT site_id, ... FROM subview1 -- maybe even: WHERE site_id IS NOT NULL
UNION ALL
SELECT null, ...;
SELECT * FROM view1 WHERE (site_id = 1 OR site_id IS NULL);
The reason, why the outer query would have a more complicated condition might have nothing to do with the subquery containing the JOIN.
(This is also not a `UNION ALL` special case: `site_id IS NULL` could also be generated by a LEFT JOIN, e.g.)
But not pushing down the condition has the grave impact, that those - otherwise working VIEWs (i.e. subview1) become "unfixably" broken, for certain WHERE-conditions on the outside.
Another reason why I said `site_id INTEGER NOT NULL` and `IS NOT DISTINCT FROM`, is that there might be some mathematical reason I'm not yet aware of where the propagation would not be sound, but which would not apply for arbitrary site_id [nullable, ...].
My primary goal is to find at least *some* way to get the condition pushed further in to avoid the full table scan, and to not have to completely rewrite all the VIEWs into a single big query, where I could inject the site_id parameter (e.g. "$1") in multiple places as needed...
Tobias
