On 29 April 2017 at 07:59, Dave Vitek <dvitek@grammatech.com> wrote: > Is what I want in the query planner's vocabulary? It would need to exploit > the fact that the _id columns are not nullable, and either exploit the > uniqueness of the id columns or do an extra LIMIT step after the join. I > think I want it to effectively give the same result I expect (haven't > tested) it would give for:
Unfortunately, it's not a plan that the current planner will consider. > SELECT D.val, B.val, C.val FROM > (SELECT * FROM A ORDER BY A.rank LIMIT 100) AS D > JOIN B ON D.b_id = B.id > JOIN C ON B.c_id = C.id > LIMIT 100; > > Perhaps there are reasons why this optimization is not safe that I haven't > thought about?
Yeah, I think so. What happens if an A row cannot find a match in B or C? This version of the query will end up returning fewer rows due to that, but the original version would consider other rows with a higher rank.
We've danced around a bit with using foreign keys as proofs that rows will exist for other optimisations in the past, but it's tricky ground since foreign keys are not updated immediately, so there are windows where they may not actually hold true to their word.
I read this query as having a relation cardinality of one-to-one mandatory - which precludes the scenario described.
Is the above saying that, today, there is no planning benefit to setting up two deferrable references constraints to enforce the non-optional requirement?
I know I'm guilty of not enforcing the non-optional part of the constraint. Mostly due to not really realizing it but also having to deal the added syntax to perform inserts. ORMs I suspect generally would be unaccommodating here as well...
