Searching large (6 million) rows MySQL with stored queries? - mysql

Question

I have a database with roughly 6 million entries - and will grow - where I'm running queries to return for a HighCharts charting functionality. I need to read longitudinally over years, so I'm running queries like this:
foreach($states as $state_id) { //php code
SELECT //mysql psuedocode
sum(case when mydatabase.Year = '2003' then 1 else 0 end) Year_2003,
sum(case when mydatabase.Year = '2004' then 1 else 0 end) Year_2004,
sum(case when mydatabase.Year = '2005' then 1 else 0 end) Year_2005,
sum(case when mydatabase.Year = '2006' then 1 else 0 end) Year_2006,
sum(case when mydatabase.Year = '2007' then 1 else 0 end) Year_2007,
sum(case when mydatabase.Year = '$more_years' then 1 else 0 end) Year_$whatever_year,
FROM mytable
WHERE State='$state_id'
AND Sex IN (0,1)
AND Age_segment IN (5,4,3,2,1)
AND "other_filters IN (etc, etc, etc)
} //end php code
But for various state at once... So returning lets say 5 states, each with the above statement but a state ID is substituted. Meanwhile the years can be any number of years, the Sex (male/female/other) and Age segment and other modifiers keep changing based on filters. The queries are long (at minimum 30-40seconds) a piece. So a thought I had - unless I'm totally doing it wrong - is to actually store the above query in a second table with the results, and first check that "meta query" and see if it was "cached" and then return the results without reading the db (which won't be updated very often).
Is this a good method or are there potential problems I'm not seeing?
EDIT: changed to table, not db (duh).
Table structure is:
id | Year | Sex | Age_segment | Another_filter | Etc
Nothing more complicated than that and no joining anything else. There are keys on id, Year, Sex, and Age_segment right now.

Answer 1

Proper indexing is what is needed to speed up the query. Start by doing an "EXPLAIN" on the query and post the results here.
I would suggest the following to start off. This way avoids the for loop and returns the data in 1 query. Not knowing the number of rows and cardinality of each column I suggest a composite index on State and Year.
SELECT mytable.State,mytable.Year,count(*)
FROM mytable
AND Sex IN (0,1)
AND Age_segment IN (5,4,3,2,1)
AND "other_filters IN (etc, etc, etc)
GROUP BY mytable.State,mytable.Year
The above query can be further optimised by checking the cardinality of some of the columns. Run the following to get the cardinality:
SELECT Age_segment FROM mytable GROUP BY Age_segment;

Answer 2

Pseudo code...
SELECT Year
, COUNT(*) total
FROM my_its_not_a_database_its_a_table
WHERE State = $state_id
AND Sex IN (0,1)
AND Age_segment IN (5,4,3,2,1)
GROUP
BY Year;