Thanks a lot Madusudanan, Igor, Lutz and Jeff for your suggestions.

What I can confirm is that the UNION ideas runs extremely fast (don't have access to the db right now to test the subquery idea, but will check next week as I travel right now). Thanks again! :)


I was wondering: would it be possible for PostgreSQL to rewrite the query to generate the UNION (or subquery plan if it's also fast) on it's own?


Thanks,
Sven

On 22.09.2016 16:44, lfischer wrote:
Hi Sven

Why not do something like

SELECT * FROM big_table
WHERE
id in (SELECT big_table_id FROM table_a WHERE "table_a"."item_id" IN (<handful of items>))
    OR
id in (SELECT big_table_id FROM table_a WHERE "table_b"."item_id" IN (<handful of items>))

that way you don't need the "distinct" and therefore there should be less comparison going on.

Lutz

On 22/09/16 14:24, Sven R. Kunze wrote:
Hi pgsql-performance list,


what is the recommended way of doing **multiple-table-spanning joins with ORs in the WHERE-clause**?


Until now, we've used the LEFT OUTER JOIN to filter big_table like so:


SELECT DISTINCT <fields of big_table>
FROM
    "big_table"
LEFT OUTER JOIN "table_a" ON ("big_table"."id" = "table_a"."big_table_id") LEFT OUTER JOIN "table_b" ON ("big_table"."id" = "table_b"."big_table_id")
WHERE
    "table_a"."item_id" IN (<handful of items>)
    OR
    "table_b"."item_id" IN (<handful of items>);


However, this results in an awful slow plan (requiring to scan the complete big_table which obviously isn't optimal). So, we decided (at least for now) to split up the query into two separate ones and merge/de-duplicate the result with application logic:


SELECT <fields of big_table>
FROM
"big_table" INNER JOIN "table_a" ON ("big_table"."id" = "table_a"."big_table_id")
WHERE
    "table_a"."item_id" IN (<handful of items>);


SELECT <fields of big_table>
FROM
"big_table" INNER JOIN "table_b" ON ("big_table"."id" = "table_b"."big_table_id")
WHERE
    "table_b"."item_id" IN (<handful of items>);


As you can imagine we would be very glad to solve this issue with a single query and without having to re-code existing logic of PostgreSQL. But how?


Best,
Sven


PS: if you require EXPLAIN ANALYZE, I can post them as well.







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