Re: Indexing a Bit String column - Mailing list pgsql-general

From Tom Lane
Subject Re: Indexing a Bit String column
Date
Msg-id 9271.1235490398@sss.pgh.pa.us
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: Indexing a Bit String column  (Gregory Stark <stark@enterprisedb.com>)
List pgsql-general
Gregory Stark <stark@enterprisedb.com> writes:
> Note that something like "WHERE myBitStringCol & B'101'" might be selecting
> too much of your table to make an index useful anyways. If each bit is set in
> half the table then you're talking about selecting 3/4 of the table in which
> case a full table scan would be more efficient than any index.

If the expectation is that the bitstring is mostly zeroes, I wonder
whether the OP wouldn't be better off using an integer-array
representation, ie instead of '00000101' store '{6,8}'.  Then he could
use the existing GIST or GIN support for integer array operations.

            regards, tom lane

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