Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2007 15:46:42 -0400
From: Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@commandprompt.com>
To: Stephen Davies <scldad@sdc.com.au>
Cc: Michael Glaesemann <grzm@seespotcode.net>,
	Russell Smith <mr-russ@pws.com.au>, pgsql-performance@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: Optimising "in" queries
Message-ID: <20070823194642.GD31461@alvh.no-ip.org>
References: <200708221210.36770.scldad@sdc.com.au>
	<46CC16F3.7060606@pws.com.au>
	<AAF53AEE-B98C-45BD-B80F-8FA528BFB98B@seespotcode.net>
	<200708230900.13878.scldad@sdc.com.au>
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Stephen Davies wrote:
> Interesting semantics. I have never seen  the IN syntax referred to as 
> "array processing" before.
> 
> I have always thought of array processing as the thing that vector 
> processors such as Cray and ETA do/did.
> 
> While superficially equivalent, I have always believed that IN (a,b,c) 
> executed faster than =a or =b or =c. Am I wrong for PostgreSQL?

Older versions of Postgres translated IN (a, b, c) into an OR'ed list of
equalities.  Nowadays it is treated as an array; I think it's translated
to = ANY ({a,b,c}), as you can see in the message you posted at the
start of this thread.

I don't think you showed us the EXPLAIN ANALYZE results that Scott
requested.

-- 
Alvaro Herrera                                http://www.CommandPrompt.com/
PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Development, 24x7 support