Re: sorting problem - Mailing list pgsql-general

From Greg Stark
Subject Re: sorting problem
Date
Msg-id 87u0qkirv9.fsf@stark.xeocode.com
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: sorting problem  (Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>)
Responses Re: sorting problem
List pgsql-general
Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> writes:

> Greg Stark <gsstark@mit.edu> writes:
> > Bruno Wolff III <bruno@wolff.to> writes:
> >> Using an index to do an order by is an order N operation.
>
> > No, using an index to do an order by is actually still n*log(n). You have to
> > traverse all the parent pages in the binary tree of the index as well.
>
> Only if you searched afresh from the root for each key, which an
> indexscan is not going to do.

Isn't that still nlog(n)? In the end you're going to have read in every page
of the index including all those non-leaf pages. Aren't there nlog(n) pages?

--
greg

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