Re: EXPLAIN output explanation requested

am  Tue, dem 03.06.2008, um 11:56:39 +0200 mailte Ron Arts folgendes:
> Hello all,
>
> I have an EXPLAIN statement that gives me output I understand,
> but on the other hand I don't...
>
> tium=# explain select codec1, phonetype from phone;
>                          QUERY PLAN
> ------------------------------------------------------------
>  Seq Scan on phone  (cost=0.00..85882.58 rows=658 width=11)
> (1 row)
>
>
> This is a table with 658 rows. Queries are indeed very
> slow. How is the query plan computed? What does the 85882 value
> mean?

You have no WHERE-condition, the whole table read with a sequential
scan. The 85882.58 is a calculated cost, based on seq_page_cost=1.
In other word, PG has to read about. 85882 blocks from disk, with a
block-size of 4 KByte thats about 343 MByte.

I guess, you have much insert/delete or update - operations on this
table and no recent vacuum.

Try to run a 'vacuum full;' and re-run your query. And, run a 'explain
analyse <your query>' to see the estimated costs and the real costs.


Andreas
--
Andreas Kretschmer
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