Re: Index scan cost calculation

On 11/30/15 5:03 PM, Jeff Janes wrote:
> It thinks the combination of (show, type, best, block)  is enough to
> get down to a single row.  One index adds "flag" to that (which is not
> useful to the query) and the other adds "row" to that, which is useful
> but the planner doesn't think it is because once you are down to a
> single tuple additional selectivity doesn't help.

It occurs to me that maybe you could force this behavior by building an
index on a row() instead of on the individual fields. IE:

CREATE INDEX ... ON( row(show, type, best, block, row) )

You would then have to query based on that:

WHERE row(show, type, best, block, row) = row( 'Trans Siberian
Orchestra', 'Music', true, 1, 1 )

You mentioned legacy code which presumably you can't modify to do that,
but maybe there's a way to trick the planner into it with a view...

CREATE VIEW AS
SELECT r.show, r.type, r..., etc, etc
   FROM ( SELECT *, row(show, type, best, block, row) AS r FROM table ) a
;

When you stick a where clause on that there's a chance it'd get turned
into WHERE row() = row()... but now that I see it I'm probably being
over optimistic about that. You could probably force the issue with an
ON SELECT ON table DO INSTEAD rule, but IIRC those aren't supported.
--
Jim Nasby, Data Architect, Blue Treble Consulting, Austin TX
Experts in Analytics, Data Architecture and PostgreSQL
Data in Trouble? Get it in Treble! http://BlueTreble.com