Re: Simple but slow

Chad,

> Thanks for your reply Josh, as usual i learn from you whenever you
> write.

You're quite welcome!

> Ive been having a hard time understanding what explain is telling me.
> I was able to get the query down to 19 secs w/o the distinct.  I
> think i'll
> move the distinct to one of my faster queries.

Distinct on large result sets can be quite brutal.  Here's why your
query was slow with DISTINCT:

1. First the query has to sort by the DISTINCT field.
2. Then it has to "roll up" all the non-distinct entries
3. Then it has to re-sort by your output sort.

This isn't much of a problem on small tables, but with 2 million
records, that's 3 table scans of the whole table, which either requires
a lot of patience or a server with 2gb of RAM and a really fast RAID
array.

> If its not too much trouble id like you to look at another.  This is
> really
> being a beast.

I think somebody already posted a solution for this.

> Thanks for your help.
> I have also enjoyed your "The Joy of Index".  I look forward to the
> next
> issue.

You're welcome again.   According to Tom and Bruno, I need to post some
corrections ... look for them early next week.

-Josh Berkus
 "Standing on the shoulders of giants."