Re: Perl/DBI vs Native - Mailing list pgsql-performance

From Craig Ringer
Subject Re: Perl/DBI vs Native
Date
Msg-id 488493DE.4000806@postnewspapers.com.au
Whole thread Raw
In response to Perl/DBI vs Native  (Valentin Bogdanov <valiouk@yahoo.co.uk>)
List pgsql-performance
Valentin Bogdanov wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have ran quite a few tests comparing how long a query takes to execute from Perl/DBI as compared to psql/pqlib. No
matterhow many times I run the test the results were always the same. 
>
> I run a SELECT all on a fairly big table and enabled the log_min_duration_statement option. With psql postgres
consistentlylogs half a second while the exact same query executed with Perl/DBI takes again consistently 2 seconds. 
>
> If I were timing the applications I would have been too much surprised by these results, obviously, processing with
Perlwould be slower than a native application. But it's the postmaster that gives these results. Could it be because
theDBI module is slower at assimilating the data? 
>
> Any light on the subject would be greatly appreciated.

Random guess: Perl's DBI is using parameterized prepared statements,
preventing the optimizer from using its knowledge about common values in
the table to decide whether or not index use is appropriate. When you're
writing the query in psql, you're not using prepared statements so the
optimizer can be cleverer.

Try comparing:

SELECT statement

to

PREPARE test(params) AS statement;
EXECUTE test(params);

eg:

SELECT x + 44 FROM t;

vs:

PREPARE test(int) AS x + $1 FROM t;
EXECUTE test(44);

Use EXPLAIN ANALYZE to better understand the changes in the query plan.

--
Craig Ringer

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