Re: Queries slow using stored procedures

Rod Dutton wrote:
> Thank John,
>
> I am running Postgres 7.3.7 on a Dell PowerEdge 6600 Server with Quad Xeon
> 2.7GHz processors with 16GB RAM and 12 x 146GB drives in Raid 10 (OS, WAL,
> Data all on separate arrays).
>

You might want think about upgraded to 7.4, as I know it is better at
quite a few things. But I'm not all that experienced (I just had a
similar problem).

> I did try hard coding botnumber as you suggested and it was FAST.  So it
> does look like the scenario that you have explained.
>

There are 2 ways of doing it that I know of. First, you can make you
function create a query and execute it. Something like:

EXECUTE ''SELECT 1 FROM transbatch WHERE botnumber = ''
    || quote_literal(botnum)
    || '' LIMIT 1'';

That forces the database to redesign the query each time. The problem
you are having is a stored procedure has to prepare the query in advance.

>
>>does the column "botnumber" have the same value repeated many, many times,
>
> but '1-7' only occurs a few?
>
> Yes, that could be the case, the table fluctuates massively from small to
> big to small regularly with a real mixture of occurrences of these values
> i.e. some values are repeated many times and some occur only a few times.
>
> I wonder if the answer is to: a) don't use a stored procedure b) up the
> statistics gathering for that column ?
>

I don't believe increasing statistics will help, as prepared statements
require one-size-fits-all queries.

> I will try your idea: select 1 where exist(select from transbatch where
> botnumber = '1-7' limit 1);
>
> Also, how can I get "EXPLAIN" output from the internals of the stored
> procedure as that would help me?
>

I believe the only way to get explain is to use prepared statements
instead of stored procedures. For example:

PREPARE my_plan(char(10)) AS SELECT 1 FROM transbatch
    WHERE botnumber = $1 LIMIT 1;

EXPLAIN ANALYZE EXECUTE my_plan('1-7');


> Many thanks,
>
> Rod
>

If you have to do the first thing I mentioned, I'm not sure if you are
getting much out of your function, so you might prefer to just ask the
question directly.

What really surprises me is that it doesn't use the index even after the
LIMIT clause. But I just did a check on my machine where I had a column
with lots of repeated entries, and it didn't use the index.

So a question for the true Guru's (like Tom Lane):

Why doesn't postgres use an indexed query if you supply a LIMIT?

John
=:->