View in MySQL has bad performance because of where-clause handling - mysql

I have a problem with my MySQL database. I got an expensive query with some joins. But i run it always for one specific id, which makes the execution very fast.
Now, i put this query into a view. If i query this view and use the where clause with the id on the view, it seems as if MySQL at first loads all records and after that applies my where clause. This results in a very bad performance.
Is there a possibility to let MySQL use also my where clauses in the view before querying all records?
Thanks a lot and cheers,
Argonitas

Related

How to check performance of mysql query?

I have been learning query optimization, increase query performance and all but in general if we create a query how can we know if this is a wise query.
I know we can see the execution time below, But this time will not give a clear indication without a good amount of data. And usually, when we create a new query we don't have much data to check.
I have learned about clauses and commands performance. But is there is anything by which we can check the performance of the query? Performance here is not execution time, it means that whether a query is "ok" or not, without data dependency.
As we cannot create that much data that would be in live database.
General performance of a query can be checked using the EXPLAIN command in MySQL. See https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/using-explain.html
It shows you how MySQL engine plans to execute the query and allows you to do some basic sanity checks i.e. if the engine will use keys and indexes to execute the query, see how MySQL will execute the joins (i.e. if foreign keys aren't missing) and many more.
You can find some general tips about how to use EXPLAIN for optimizing queries here (along with some nice samples): http://www.sitepoint.com/using-explain-to-write-better-mysql-queries/
As mentioned above, Right query is always data-dependent. Up to some level you can use the below methods to check the performance
You can use Explain to understand the Query Execution Plan and that may help you to correct some stuffs. For more info :
Refer Documentation Optimizing Queries with EXPLAIN
You can use Query Analyzer. Refer MySQL Query Analyzer
I like to throw my cookbook at Newbies because they often do not understand how important INDEXes are, or don't know some of the subtleties.
When experimenting with multiple choices of query/schema, I like to use
FLUSH STATUS;
SELECT ...;
SHOW SESSION STATUS LIKE 'Handler%';
That counts low level actions, such as "read next record". It essentially eliminates caching issues, disk speed, etc, and is very reproducible. Often there is a counter in that output (or multiple counters) that match the number of rows in the table (sometimes +/-1) -- that tells me there are table scan(s). This is usually not as good as if some INDEX were being used. If the query has a LIMIT, that value may show up in some Handler.
A really bad query, such as a CROSS JOIN, would show a value of N*M, where N and M are the row counts for the two tables.
I used the Handler technique to 'prove' that virtually all published "get me a random row" techniques require a table scan. Then I could experiment with small tables and Handlers to come up with a list of faster random routines.
Another tip when timing... Turn off the Query_cache (or use SELECT SQL_NO_CACHE).

MySQL: Adding indexes on a table with existing records

I have a query that is running very slowly. The table is was querying has about 100k records and no indexes on most of the columns used in the where clause. I just added indexes on those columns but the query hasn't gotten any faster.
I think this is because when a column is indexed, it's value is written in the index at the time of insertion. I just added the indexes now after all those records were added. So is there a way to "re-run the indexes" on the table?
Edit
Here is the query and explain result:
Oddly enough when I copy the query and run in directly in my SQL manager tool it runs quite fast so may bye the problem is in my application code and not in the query itself.
Mysql keeps consistent indexes. It does not matter if the data is added first, the index is added first, or the data is changed at any time. The same final index will result (assuming the same final data and index type).
Your slow query is not caused by adding the index later. There will be some other reason.
This is an extremely common problem.
Use MySQL explain http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/using-explain.html
When you precede a SELECT statement with the keyword EXPLAIN, MySQL displays information from the optimizer about the query execution plan. That is, MySQL explains how it would process the statement, including information about how tables are joined and in which order.
Using these results... verify the index you created is functioning the way you expected.
If not, you will want to tweak your index until you have it working as expected.
You might want to create a new table, create indexes, then insert all elements from old table to new while testing this. It's easier than dropping and re-adding indices a million times.

Should I be using CREATE VIEW instead of JOIN all the time

I have the following query:
SELECT t.*, a.hits AS ahits
FROM t, a
WHERE (t.TRACK LIKE 'xxx')
AND a.A_ID = t.A_ID
ORDER BY t.hits DESC, a.hits DESC
which runs very frequently. Table t has around 15M+ rows and a has around 3M+ rows.
When I did an EXPLAIN on the above query, I received a note saying that it always created a temp table. I noticed that creating a temp table based on the above query took quite a while. And, this is done plenty of time.
Thus, I am wondering if I create a view using the above say:
CREATE VIEW v_t_a
SELECT t.*, a.hits AS ahits
FROM t, a
WHERE a.A_ID = t.A_ID
And change my code to:
SELECT * FROM v_t_a WHERE TRACK LIKE 'xxx' ORDER BY hits DESC, ahits DESC
Will it improve the performance? Will it remove the create temp table time?
Thank you so much for your suggestions!
It is very dangerous if you assume MySQL would optimize your VIEWs same way as more advanced database systems would. Same as with subqueries and derived tables MySQL 5.0 will fail and perform very inefficiently in many counts.
MySQL has two ways of handling the VIEWS – query merge, in which case VIEW is simply expanded as a macro or Temporary Table in which case VIEW is materialized to temporary tables (without indexes !) which is later used further in query execution.
There does not seems to be any optimizations applied to the query used for temporary table creation from the outer query and plus if you use more then one Temporary Tables views which you join together you may have serious issues because such tables do not get any indexes.
So be very careful implementing MySQL VIEWs in your application, especially ones which require temporary table execution method. VIEWs can be used with very small performance overhead but only in case they are used with caution.
MySQL has long way to go getting queries with VIEWs properly optimized.
VIEW internally JOINS the TWO tables everytime you QUERY a VIEW...!!
To prevent this, create MATERIALIZED VIEW...
It is a view that is more of a TABLE ...You can query it directly as other table..
But you have to write some TRIGGERS to update it automatically, if any underlying TABLE data changes...
See this : http://tech.jonathangardner.net/wiki/PostgreSQL/Materialized_Views
It's rare that doing exactly the same operations in a view will be more efficient than doing it as a query.
The views are more to manage complexity of queries rather than performance, they simply perform the same actions at the back end as the query would have.
One exception to this is materialised query tables which actually create a separate long-lived table for the query so that subsequent queries are more efficient. I have no idea whether MySQL has such a thing, I'm a DB2 man myself :-)
But, you could possibly implement such a scheme yourself if performance of the query is an issue.
It depends greatly on the rate of change of the table. If the data is changing so often that a materialised query would have to be regenerated every time anyway, it won't be worth it.

Optimizing MySQL queries/database

I have two tables TABLE A and TABLE B.
TABLE A contain 1 million (1,000,000) records and 4 fields while TABLE 2 contain 60,000 and 3 fields.
I am running a query which joins these two tables and usees WHERE clause to find specific products like WHERE product like '%Bags%' and product like 'Bags%' e.t.c.
When I run the query directly in phpMyAdmin then it returns records in around 1 or 2 seconds. But when they are being used on website, they are sometime taking 9 or 10 seconds according to MySQL 'slow query' log. Actually my website response was very slow at times so upon investigation I found out it is due to MySQL as I came to know about 'slow query log'.
The slow query log consists of all SQL statements that took more than long_query_time seconds to execute and required at least min_examined_row_limit rows to be examined.
So according to that log "query_time" for above query was 13 seconds while in some cases they even had "query_time" exceeding 50 seconds.
Both my tables are using PRIMARY keys as well as INDEXES. So I want to know how can I optimize them more or is there any way I can optimize MySQL settings in general?
This slowness of website doesn't happen all the time but sometimes (may be once in a week) and lasts for around 1 or 2 minutes. It gets decent amount of traffic and there are many other queries too, the above I posted was just one example.
Thanks
For all things MySQL and performance related, check out http://www.mysqlperformanceblog.com/
Check your queries with EXPLAIN, see here and here for info on how to use EXPLAIN as query diagnostic tool.
It's not enough to just have indexes. Are you indexing the fields searched in the WHERE clause? Also do you have indexes for the fields used in the WHERE clause (including the fields you mention in ORDER BY, GROUP BY, and HAVING clauses as well as JOINs)? If you have grouped fields in a single index, that index won't be hit unless you have a query that searches all those fields together. If you group fields in an index make sure they the index will actually be used in your query (EXPLAIN is your friend).
That said, it could be many other things as well: poorly configured MySQL server, poorly tuned server, bad schema. But your queries and your indexes are good place to start your investigation.
Here is a nice summary of performance best practices from Jay Pipes of MySQL.
like '%Bags%' query cannot be optimized using indexes.
The only way to improve performance here is to use fulltext indexes or get sphinx to search.
Its because of some other queries are run at the time when you are going to refresh the page of your website. so if for example your website going to run 8-10 queries at time of page refresh then it will take some more time than you run single query in phpmyadmin. and if its take 1-1.5 min to execute then its may not the query problem but it may have prob with the server speed also.
and you also can use MATCH() AGAINST() statement for optimize this type of search queries.
Otherwise you are already using PRIMARY KEY, INDEXES and JOINS so there is no need to worry about other things.
just check it out.
Thanks.
There are many ways to optimize Databases and queries. My method is the following.
Look at the DB Schema and see if it makes sense
Most often, Databases have bad designs and are not normalized. This can greatly affect the speed of your Database. As a general case, learn the 3 Normal Forms and apply them at all times. The normal forms above 3rd Normal Form are often called de-normalization forms but what this really means is that they break some rules to make the Database faster.
What I suggest is to stick to the 3rd normal form except if you are a DBA (which means you know subsequent forms and know what you're doing). Normalization after the 3rd NF is often done at a later time, not during design.
Only query what you really need
Filter as much as possible
Your Where Clause is the most important part for optimization.
Select only the fields you need
Never use "Select *" -- Specify only the fields you need; it will be faster and will use less bandwidth.
Be careful with joins
Joins are expensive in terms of time. Make sure that you use all the keys that relate the two tables together and don't join to unused tables -- always try to join on indexed fields. The join type is important as well (INNER, OUTER,... ).
Optimize queries and stored procedures (Most Run First)
Queries are very fast. Generally, you can retrieve many records in less than a second, even with joins, sorting and calculations. As a rule of thumb, if your query is longer than a second, you can probably optimize it.
Start with the Queries that are most often used as well as the Queries that take the most time to execute.
Add, remove or modify indexes
If your query does Full Table Scans, indexes and proper filtering can solve what is normally a very time-consuming process. All primary keys need indexes because they makes joins faster. This also means that all tables need a primary key. You can also add indexes on fields you often use for filtering in the Where Clauses.
You especially want to use Indexes on Integers, Booleans, and Numbers. On the other hand, you probably don't want to use indexes on Blobs, VarChars and Long Strings.
Be careful with adding indexes because they need to be maintained by the database. If you do many updates on that field, maintaining indexes might take more time than it saves.
In the Internet world, read-only tables are very common. When a table is read-only, you can add indexes with less negative impact because indexes don't need to be maintained (or only rarely need maintenance).
Move Queries to Stored Procedures (SP)
Stored Procedures are usually better and faster than queries for the following reasons:
Stored Procedures are compiled (SQL Code is not), making them faster than SQL code.
SPs don't use as much bandwidth because you can do many queries in one SP. SPs also stay on the server until the final results are returned.
Stored Procedures are run on the server, which is typically faster.
Calculations in code (VB, Java, C++, ...) are not as fast as SP in most cases.
It keeps your DB access code separate from your presentation layer, which makes it easier to maintain (3 tiers model).
Remove unneeded Views
Views are a special type of Query -- they are not tables. They are logical and not physical so every time you run select * from MyView, you run the query that makes the view and your query on the view.
If you always need the same information, views could be good.
If you have to filter the View, it's like running a query on a query -- it's slower.
Tune DB settings
You can tune the DB in many ways. Update statistics used by the optimizer, run optimization options, make the DB read-only, etc... That takes a broader knowledge of the DB you work with and is mostly done by the DBA.
****> Using Query Analysers****
In many Databases, there is a tool for running and optimizing queries. SQL Server has a tool called the Query Analyser, which is very useful for optimizing. You can write queries, execute them and, more importantly, see the execution plan. You use the execution to understand what SQL Server does with your query.

dilemma about mysql. using condition to limit load on a dbf

I have a table of about 800 000 records. Its basically a log which I query often.
I gave condition to query only queries that were entered last month in attempt to reduce the load on a database.
My thinking is
a) if the database goes only through the first month and then returns entries, its good.
b) if the database goes through the whole database + checking the condition against every single record, it's actually worse than no condition.
What is your opinion?
How would you go about reducing load on a dbf?
If the field containing the entry date is keyed/indexed, and is used by the DB software to optimize the query, that should reduce the set of rows examined to the rows matching that date range.
That said, it's a commonly understood that you are better off optimizing queries, indexes, database server settings and hardware, in that order. Changing how you query your data can reduce the impact of a query a millionfold for a query that is badly formulated in the first place, depending on the dataset.
If there are no obvious areas for speedup in how the query itself is formulated (joins done correctly or no joins needed, or effective use of indexes), adding indexes to help your common queries would by a good next step.
If you want more information about how the database is going to execute your query; you can use the MySQL EXPLAIN command to find out. For example, that will tell you if it's able to use an index for the query.