Re: Bad query plan when the wrong data type is used - Mailing list pgsql-performance

From Josh Berkus
Subject Re: Bad query plan when the wrong data type is used
Date
Msg-id 4D51BE0B.1060404@agliodbs.com
Whole thread Raw
In response to Bad query plan when the wrong data type is used  (Laszlo Nagy <gandalf@shopzeus.com>)
Responses Re: Bad query plan when the wrong data type is used
Re: Bad query plan when the wrong data type is used
List pgsql-performance
Laszlo,

> Which is silly. I think that PostgreSQL converts the int side to a
> float, and then compares them.
>
> It would be better to do this, for each item in the loop:
>
>     * evaluate the right side (which is float)
>     * tell if it is an integer or not
>     * if not an integer, then discard the row immediately
>     * otherwise use its integer value for the index scan

Not terribly likely, I'm afraid.  Data type coercion is *way* more
complex than you realize (consider the number of data types we have, and
the ability to add UDTs, and then square it).  And the functionality you
propose would break backwards compatibility; many people currently use
".0" currently in order to force a coercion to Float or Numeric.

I'm not saying that PostgreSQL couldn't do better on this kind of case,
but that doing better is a major project, not a minor one.

--
                                  -- Josh Berkus
                                     PostgreSQL Experts Inc.
                                     http://www.pgexperts.com

pgsql-performance by date:

Previous
From: "Kevin Grittner"
Date:
Subject: Re: Really really slow select count(*)
Next
From: Greg Smith
Date:
Subject: Re: Really really slow select count(*)