Hi all,
I have a execution planner related issue that I'd like to have some help
in understanding a bit deeper -
I have a table which basically contains fields for a value, a timestamp
and
a record type which is an integer. I would like to do a query which
retrieves
the newest record for each type, and the persistence framework that I'm
using
does something which is structurally like
SELECT * FROM table t1 WHERE 0 = (SELECT COUNT(*) FROM table t2 WHERE
t2.type = t1.type AND t2.timestamp > t1.timestamp)
On all of the PostgreSQL versions I've tried (9.0.2 included) this
executes
in about 20-30 seconds, which isn't exactly stellar. I've tried the (I
think)
equivalent
SELECT * FROM table t1 WHERE NOT EXISTS (SELECT * FROM table t2 WHERE
t2.type = t1.type AND t2.timestamp > t1.timestamp)
instead, and that executes in about 100 ms, so it's about 200 times
faster.
The two statements have completely different execution plans, so I
understand
why there is a difference in performance, but as I'm unable to modify the
SQL that the persistence framework generates I'd like to know if there's
anything that I can do in order to make the first query execute as fast as
the second one.
I'm more specifically thinking whether I'm missing out on a crucial
planner
configuration knob or something like that, which causes the planner to
treat the two cases differently.
Best regards & thanks for an excellent database engine,
Mikkel Lauritsen
