> > "Bob Duffey" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > I'm seeing some query plans that I'm not expecting. The table in > question > > is reasonably big (130,000,000 rows). The table has a primary key, > indexed > > by one field ("ID", of type bigint). Thus, I would expect the > following > > query to simply scan through the table using the primary key: > > > select * from "T" order by "ID" > > This is not wrong, or at least not obviously wrong. A full-table > indexscan is often slower than seqscan-and-sort. If the particular > case is wrong for you, you need to look at adjusting the planner's > cost parameters to match your environment. But you didn't provide any > evidence that the chosen plan is actually worse than the alternative > ...
I think I understand what Bob's getting at when he mentions blocking. The seqscan-and-sort would return the last record faster, but the indexscan returns the first record faster. If you're iterating through the records via a cursor, the indexscan behavior would be more desirable. You could get the initial rows back without waiting for all 130 million to be fetched and sorted. In oracle, there is a first-rows vs. all-rows query hint for this sort of thing. -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general