why does index not work as expected in mysql? - mysql

Question

I really want to why my index not working.
I have two table post, post_log.
create table post
(
id int auto_increment
primary key,
comment int null,
is_used tinyint(1) default 1 not null,
is_deleted tinyint(1) default 0 not null
);
create table post_log
(
id int auto_increment
primary key,
post_id int not null,
created_at datetime not null,
user int null,
constraint post_log_post_id_fk
foreign key (post_id) references post (id)
);
create index post_log_created_at_index
on post_log (created_at);
When I queried below, created_at index works well.
explain
SELECT *
FROM post p
INNER JOIN post_log pl ON p.id = pl.post_id
WHERE pl.created_at > DATE('2022-06-01')
AND pl.created_at < DATE('2022-06-08')
AND p.is_used is TRUE
AND p.is_deleted is FALSE;
When I queried below, it doesn't work and post table do full scan.
explain
SELECT *
FROM post p
INNER JOIN post_log pl ON p.id = pl.post_id
WHERE pl.created_at > DATE('2022-06-01')
AND pl.created_at < DATE('2022-06-08')
AND p.is_used = 1
AND p.is_deleted = 0;
And below not working either.
explain
SELECT *
FROM post p
INNER JOIN post_log pl ON p.id = pl.post_id
WHERE pl.created_at > DATE('2022-06-01')
AND pl.created_at < DATE('2022-06-08')
and p.comment = 111
what is different between 'tinyint = 1' and 'tinyint is true'?
and, why first query work correctly and the others don't work correctly??

Answer 1

When making the query plan, MySQL has to decide whether to first filter the post_log table using the index, or first filter the post table using the is_used and is_deleted columns.
= 1 tests for the specific value 1, while IS TRUE is true for any non-zero value. I guess it decides that when you're searching for specific values, it will be more efficient to filter the post table first because there will likely be fewer matches (since these columns aren't indexed, it doesn't know that 0 and 1 are the only values).