From: Bruce Momjian <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us>
Message-Id: <200304151423.h3FENUf06986@candle.pha.pa.us>
Subject: Re: [PERFORM] Yet Another (Simple) Case of Index not used
In-Reply-To: <3E93348C.20208@cvc.net>
To: gearond@cvc.net
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2003 10:23:30 -0400 (EDT)
Cc: Dann Corbit <DCorbit@connx.com>, Denis <denis@next2me.com>,
	pgsql-performance@postgresql.org, pgsql-general@postgresql.org,
	pgsql-sql@postgresql.org
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Dennis Gearon wrote:
> from mysql manual:
> -------------------------------------------------------------
> "COUNT(*) is optimized to return very quickly if the SELECT retrieves from one 
> table, no other columns are retrieved, and there is no WHERE clause. For example:
> 
> mysql> select COUNT(*) from student;"
> -------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> A nice little optimization, maybe not possible in a MVCC system.

I think the only thing you can do with MVCC is to cache the value and
tranaction id for "SELECT AGG(*) FROM tab" and make the cached value
visible to transaction id's greater than the one that executed the
query, and invalidate the cache every time the table is modified.

In fact, don't clear the cache, just record the transaction id of the
table modification command so we can use standard visibility routines to
make the cache usable as long as possiible.

The cleanest way would probably be to create an aggregate cache system
table, and to insert into it when someone does an unqualified aggregate,
and to delete from it when someone modifies the table --- the MVCC tuple
visibility rules are handled automatically.  Queries can look in there
to see if a visible cached value already exists. Of course, the big
question is whether this would be a big win, and whether the cost of
upkeep would justify it.

-- 
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