MySQL update not using indexes with WHERE IN clause after certain value - mysql

We have a table having around 10 million records and we are trying to update some columns using the id(primary key) in the where clause.
UPDATE table_name SET column1=1, column2=0,column3='2022-10-30' WHERE id IN(1,2,3,4,5,6,7,......etc);
Scenario 1: when there are 3000 or fewer ids in the IN clause and if I try for EXPLAIN, then the 'possible_keys' and 'key' show the PRIMARY, and the query gets executed very fast.
Scenario 2: when there are 3000 or more ids(up to 30K) in the IN clause and if I try for EXPLAIN, then the 'possible_keys' shows NULL and the 'key' shows the PRIMARY and the query runs forever. If I use FORCE INDEX(PRIMARY) then the 'possible_keys' and the 'key' shows the PRIMARY and the query gets executed very fast.
Scenario 3: when there are more than 30k ids in the IN clause and even if I use FORCE INDEX(PRIMARY), the 'possible_keys' shows NULL, and the 'key' shows the PRIMARY and the query runs forever.
I believe the optimizer is going for a full table scan instead of an index scan. Can we make any change such that the optimizer goes for an index scan instead of a table scan? Please suggest if there are any parameter changes required to overcome this issue.
The MySQL version is 5.7

As far as I know you need to just provide an ad-hoc table with all the ids and join table_name from it:
update (select 1 id union select 2 union select 3) ids
join table_name using (id) set column1=1, column2=0, column3='2022-10-30';
In mysql 8 you can use a values table constructor which is a little more terse (omit "row" for mariadb, e.g. values (1),(2),(3)):
update (select null id where 0 union all values row(1),row(2),row(3)) ids
join table_name using (id) set column1=1, column2=0, column3='2022-10-30';
fiddle

When UPDATEing a significant chunk of a table wit all the same update values, I see a red flag.
Do you always update the same set of rows? Could that info be in a smaller separate table that you JOIN to?
Or may some other structural schema change that focuses on helping the Updates be faster?
If you must have a long IN list, I suggest doing 100 at a time. And don't try to COMMIT all 3000+ in the same transaction. (Committing in chunks mak violate some business logic, so you may not want to do such.)

Related

How to optimise mysql query as Full ProcessList is showing Sending Data for over 24 hours

I have the following query that runs forever and I am looking to see if there is anyway that I can optimise it. This is running on a table that has in total 1,406,480 rows of data but apart from the Filename and Refcolumn, the ID and End_Date have both been indexed.
My Query:
INSERT INTO UniqueIDs
(
SELECT
T1.ID
FROM
master_table T1
LEFT JOIN
master_table T2
ON
(
T1.Ref_No = T2.Ref_No
AND
T1.End_Date = T2.End_Date
AND
T1.Filename = T2.Filename
AND
T1.ID > T2.ID
)
WHERE T2.ID IS NULL
AND
LENGTH(T1.Ref_No) BETWEEN 5 AND 10
)
;
Explain Results:
The reason for not indexing the Ref_No is that this is a text column and therefore I get a BLOB/TEXT error when I try and index this column.
Would really appreciate if somebody could advise on how I can quicken this query.
Thanks
Thanks to Bill in regards to multi column indexes I have managed to make some headway. I first ran this code:
CREATE INDEX I_DELETE_DUPS ON master_table(id, End_Date);
I then added a new column to show the length of the Ref_No but had to change it from the query Bill mentioned as my version of MySQL is 5.5. So I ran it in 3 steps:
ALTER TABLE master_table
ADD COLUMN Ref_No_length SMALLINT UNSIGNED;
UPDATE master_table SET Ref_No_length = LENGTH(Ref_No);
ALTER TABLE master_table ADD INDEX (Ref_No_length);
Last step was to change my insert query with the where clause for the length. This was changed to:
AND t1.Ref_No_length between 5 and 10;
I then ran this query and within 15 mins I had 280k worth of id's inserted into my UniqueIDs table. I did go change my insert script to see if I could add more values to the length by doing the following:
AND t1.Ref_No_length IN (5,6,7,8,9,10,13);
This was to bring in the values where length was also equal to 13. This query took a lot longer, 2hr 50 mins to be precise but the additional ask of looking for all rows that have length of 13 gave me an extra 700k unique ids.
I am looking at ways to optimise the query with the IN clause, but a big improvement where this query kept running for 24 hours. So thank you so much Bill.
For the JOIN, you should have a multi-column index on (Ref_No, End_Date, Filename).
You can create a prefix index on a TEXT column like this:
ALTER TABLE master_table ADD INDEX (Ref_No(10));
But that won't help you search based on the LENGTH(). Indexing only helps search by value indexed, not by functions on the column.
In MySQL 5.7 or later, you can create a virtual column like this, with an index on the values calculated for the virtual column:
ALTER TABLE master_table
ADD COLUMN Ref_No_length SMALLINT UNSIGNED AS (LENGTH(Ref_No)),
ADD INDEX (Ref_No_length);
Then MySQL will recognize that your condition in your query is the same as the expression for the virtual column, and it will automatically use the index (exception: in my experience, this doesn't work for expressions using JSON functions).
But this is no guarantee that the index will help. If most of the rows match the condition of the length being between 5 and 10, the optimizer will not bother with the index. It may be more work to use the index than to do a table-scan.
the ID and End_Date have both been indexed.
You have PRIMARY KEY(id) and redundantly INDEX(id)? A PK is a unique key.
"have both been indexed" -- INDEX(a), INDEX(b) is not the same as INDEX(a,b) -- they have different uses. Read about "composite" indexes.
That query smells a lot like "group-wise" max done in a very slow way. (Alas, that may have come from the online docs.)
I have compiled the fastest ways to do that task here: http://mysql.rjweb.org/doc.php/groupwise_max (There are multiple versions, based on MySQL version and what issues your code can/cannot tolerate.)
Please provide SHOW CREATE TABLE. One important question: Is id the PRIMARY KEY?
This composite index may be useful:
(Filename, End_Date, Ref_No, -- first, in any order
ID) -- last
This, as others have noted, is unlikely to be helped by any index, hence T1 will need a full-table-scan:
AND LENGTH(T1.Ref_No) BETWEEN 5 AND 10
If Ref_No cannot be bigger than 191 characters, change it to a VARCHAR so that it can be used in an index. Oh, did I ask for SHOW CREATE TABLE? If you can't make it VARCHAR, then my recommended composite index is
INDEX(Filename, End_Date, ID)

Most efficient query to get last modified record in large table

I have a table with a large number of records ( > 300,000). The most relevant fields in the table are:
CREATE_DATE
MOD_DATE
Those are updated every time a record is added or updated.
I now need to query this table to find the date of the record that was modified last. I'm currently using
SELECT mod_date FROM table ORDER BY mod_date DESC LIMIT 1;
But I'm wondering if this is the most efficient way to get the answer.
I've tried adding a where clause to limit the date to the last month, but it looks like that's actually slower (and I need the most recent date, which could be older than the last month).
I've also tried the suggestion I read elsewhere to use:
SELECT UPDATE_TIME
FROM information_schema.tables
WHERE TABLE_SCHEMA = 'db'
AND TABLE_NAME = 'table';
But since I might be working on a dump of the original that query might result into NULL. And it looks like this is actually slower than the original query.
I can't resort to last_insert_id() because I'm not updating or inserting.
I just want to make sure I have the most efficient query possible.
The most efficient way for this query would be to use an index for the column MOD_DATE.
From How MySQL Uses Indexes
8.3.1 How MySQL Uses Indexes
Indexes are used to find rows with specific column values quickly.
Without an index, MySQL must begin with the first row and then read
through the entire table to find the relevant rows. The larger the
table, the more this costs. If the table has an index for the columns
in question, MySQL can quickly determine the position to seek to in
the middle of the data file without having to look at all the data. If
a table has 1,000 rows, this is at least 100 times faster than reading
sequentially.
You can use
SHOW CREATE TABLE UPDATE_TIME;
to get the CREATE statement and see, if an index on MOD_DATE is defined.
To add an Index you can use
CREATE INDEX
CREATE [UNIQUE|FULLTEXT|SPATIAL] INDEX index_name
[index_type]
ON tbl_name (index_col_name,...)
[index_option]
[algorithm_option | lock_option] ...
see http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.6/en/create-index.html
Make sure that both of those fields are indexed.
Then I would just run -
select max(mod_date) from table
or create_date, whichever one.
Make sure to create 2 indexes, one on each date field, not a compound index on both.
As for a discussion of the difference between this and using limit, see MIN/MAX vs ORDER BY and LIMIT
Use EXPLAIN:
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/explain.html
This tells You how mysql executes statement, thanks to that You can figure out most efficient way, cause it depends on Your db structure and there is no one universal solution.

MySQL Index + Query Processing

Assume I have this table:
create table table_a (
id int,
name varchar(25),
address varchar(25),
primary key (id)
) engine = innodb;
When I run this query:
select * from table_a where id >= 'x' and name = 'test';
How will MySQL process it? Will it pull all the id's first (assume 1000 rows) then apply the where clause name = 'test'?
Or while it looks for the ids, it is already applying the where clause at the same time?
As id is the PK (and no index on name) it will load all rows that satisfy the id based criterion into memory after which it will filter the resultset by the name criterion. Adding a composite index containing both fields would mean that it would only load the records that satisfy both criteria. Adding a separate single column index on the name field may not result in an index merge operation, in which case the index would have no effect.
Do you have indexes on either column? That may affect the execution plan. The other thing is one might cast the 'x'::int to ensure a numeric comparison instead of a string comparison.
For the best result, you should have a single index which includes both of the columns id and name.
In your case, I can't answer the affect of the primary index to that query. That depends on DBMS's and versions. If you really don't want to put more index (because more index means slow write and updates) just populate your table with like 10.000.000 random results, try it and see the effect.
you can compare the execution times by executing the query first when the id comes first in the where clause and then interchange and bring the name first. to see an example of mysql performance with indexes check this out http://www.mysqlperformanceblog.com/2006/06/02/indexes-in-mysql/
You can get information on how the query is processed by running EXPLAIN on the query.
If the idea is to optimize that query then you might want to add an index like:
alter table table_a add unique index name_id_idx (name, id);

SELECT vs UPDATE performance with index

If I SELECT IDs then UPDATE using those IDs, then the UPDATE query is faster than if I would UPDATE using the conditions in the SELECT.
To illustrate:
SELECT id FROM table WHERE a IS NULL LIMIT 10; -- 0.00 sec
UPDATE table SET field = value WHERE id IN (...); -- 0.01 sec
The above is about 100 times faster than an UPDATE with the same conditions:
UPDATE table SET field = value WHERE a IS NULL LIMIT 10; -- 0.91 sec
Why?
Note: the a column is indexed.
Most likely the second UPDATE statement locks much more rows, while the first one uses unique key and locks only the rows it's going to update.
The two queries are not identical. You only know that the IDs are unique in the table.
UPDATE ... LIMIT 10 will update at most 10 records.
UPDATE ... WHERE id IN (SELECT ... LIMIT 10) may update more than 10 records if there are duplicate ids.
I don't think there can be a one straight-forward answer to your "why?" without doing some sort of analysis and research.
The SELECT queries are normally cached, which means that if you run the same SELECT query multiple times, the execution time of the first query is normally greater than the following queries. Please note that this behavior can only be experienced where the SELECT is heavy and not in scenarios where even the first SELECT is much faster. So, in your example it might be that the SELECT took 0.00s because of the caching. The UPDATE queries are using different WHERE clauses and hence it is likely that their execution times are different.
Though the column a is indexed, but it is not necessary that MySQL must be using the index when doing the SELECT or the UPDATE. Please study the EXPLAIN outputs. Also, see the output of SHOW INDEX and check if the "Comment" column reads "disabled" for any indexes? You may read more here - http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/show-index.html and http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/mysql-indexes.html.
Also, if we ignore the SELECT for a while and focus only on the UPDATE queries, it is obvious that they aren't both using the same WHERE condition - the first one runs on id column and the latter on a. Though both columns are indexed but it does not necessarily mean that all the table indexes perform alike. It is possible that some index is more efficient than the other depending on the size of the index or the datatype of the indexed column or if it is a single- or multiple-column index. There sure might be other reasons but I ain't an expert on it.
Also, I think that the second UPDATE is doing more work in the sense that it might be putting more row-level locks compared to the first UPDATE. It is true that both UPDATES are finally updating the same number of rows. But where in the first update, it is 10 rows that are locked, I think in the second UPDATE, all rows with a as NULL (which is more than 10) are locked before doing the UPDATE. Perhaps MySQL first applies the locking and then runs the LIMIT clause to update only limited records.
Hope the above explanation makes sense!
Do you have a composite index or separate indexes?
If it is a composite index of id and a columns,
In 2nd update statement the a column's index would not be used. The reason is that only the left most prefix indexes are used (unless if a is the PRIMARY KEY)
So if you want the a column's index to be used, you need in include id in your WHERE clause as well, with id first then a.
Also it depends on what storage engine you are using since MySQL does indexes at the engine level, not server.
You can try this:
UPDATE table SET field = value WHERE id IN (...) AND a IS NULL LIMIT 10;
By doing this id is in the left most index followed by a
Also from your comments, the lookups are much faster because if you are using InnoDB, updating columns would mean that the InnoDB storage engine would have to move indexes to a different page node, or have to split a page if the page is already full, since InnoDB stores indexes in sequential order. This process is VERY slow and expensive, and gets even slower if your indexes are fragmented, or if your table is very big
The comment by Michael J.V is the best description. This answer assumes a is a column that is not indexed and 'id' is.
The WHERE clause in the first UPDATE command is working off the primary key of the table, id
The WHERE clause in the second UPDATE command is working off a non-indexed column. This makes the finding of the columns to be updated significantly slower.
Never underestimate the power of indexes. A table will perform better if the indexes are used correctly than a table a tenth the size with no indexing.
Regarding "MySQL doesn't support updating the same table you're selecting from"
UPDATE table SET field = value
WHERE id IN (SELECT id FROM table WHERE a IS NULL LIMIT 10);
Just do this:
UPDATE table SET field = value
WHERE id IN (select id from (SELECT id FROM table WHERE a IS NULL LIMIT 10));
The accepted answer seems right but is incomplete, there are major differences.
As much as I understand, and I'm not a SQL expert:
The first query you SELECT N rows and UPDATE them using the primary key.
That's very fast as you have a direct access to all rows based on the fastest possible index.
The second query you UPDATE N rows using LIMIT
That will lock all rows and release again after the update is finished.
The big difference is that you have a RACE CONDITION in case 1) and an atomic UPDATE in case 2)
If you have two or more simultanous calls of the case 1) query you'll have the situation that you select the SAME id's from the table.
Both calls will update the same IDs simultanously, overwriting each other.
This is called "race condition".
The second case is avoiding that issue, mysql will lock all rows during the update.
If a second session is doing the same command it will have a wait time until the rows are unlocked.
So no race condition is possible at the expense of lost time.

MySQL, delete and index hint

I have to delete about 10K rows from a table that has more than 100 million rows based on some criteria. When I execute the query, it takes about 5 minutes. I ran an explain plan (the delete query converted to select * since MySQL does not support explain delete) and found that MySQL uses the wrong index.
My question is: is there any way to tell MySQL which index to use during delete? If not, what ca I do? Select to temp table then delete from temp table?
There is index hint syntax. //ETA: sadly, not for deletes
ETA:
Have you tried running ANALYZE TABLE $mytable?
If that doesn't pay off, I'm thinking you have 2 choices: Drop the offending index before the delete and recreate it after. Or JOIN your delete table to another table on the desired index which should ensure that the desired index is used.
I've never really come across a situation where MySQL chose the wrong index, but rather my understanding of how indexes worked was usually at fault.
You might want to check out this book: http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596003067
It has a great section on how indexes work and other tuning options.
As stated in other answers, MySQL can't use indexes, but the PRIMARY KEY index.
So your best option, if you have a PRIMARY KEY on the table is to run a fast SELECT, then DELETE according lines. Preferably in a TRANSACTION, so that you don't delete wrong rows.
Hence:
DELETE FROM table WHERE column_with_index = 0
Will be rewritten:
SELECT primary_key FROM table WHERE column_with_index = 0 => returns many lines
DELETE FROM table WHERE primary_key IN(?, ?, ?) => ? will be replaced by the results of the SELECTed primary keys.
If you have not that much lines to delete, it would be more efficient this way.
For example, I've just hit an exemple, on the same table, with the same data:
7499067 rows analyzed by DELETE : 12 seconds
vs
6 rows analyzed by SELECT using a good index : 0.10 seconds
0 rows to be deleted in the end