Super slow query with CROSS JOIN - mysql

Question

I have two tables named table_1 (1GB) and reference (250Mb).
When I query a cross join on reference it takes 16hours to update table_1 .. We changed the system files EXT3 for XFS but still it's taking 16hrs.. WHAT AM I DOING WRONG??
Here is the update/cross join query :
mysql> UPDATE table_1 CROSS JOIN reference ON
-> (table_1.start >= reference.txStart AND table_1.end <= reference.txEnd)
-> SET table_1.name = reference.name;
Query OK, 17311434 rows affected (16 hours 36 min 48.62 sec)
Rows matched: 17311434 Changed: 17311434 Warnings: 0
Here is a show create table of table_1 and reference:
CREATE TABLE `table_1` (
`strand` char(1) DEFAULT NULL,
`chr` varchar(10) DEFAULT NULL,
`start` int(11) DEFAULT NULL,
`end` int(11) DEFAULT NULL,
`name` varchar(255) DEFAULT NULL,
`name2` varchar(255) DEFAULT NULL,
KEY `annot` (`start`,`end`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 ;
CREATE TABLE `reference` (
`bin` smallint(5) unsigned NOT NULL,
`name` varchar(255) NOT NULL,
`chrom` varchar(255) NOT NULL,
`strand` char(1) NOT NULL,
`txStart` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL,
`txEnd` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL,
`cdsStart` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL,
`cdsEnd` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL,
`exonCount` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL,
`exonStarts` longblob NOT NULL,
`exonEnds` longblob NOT NULL,
`score` int(11) DEFAULT NULL,
`name2` varchar(255) NOT NULL,
`cdsStartStat` enum('none','unk','incmpl','cmpl') NOT NULL,
`cdsEndStat` enum('none','unk','incmpl','cmpl') NOT NULL,
`exonFrames` longblob NOT NULL,
KEY `chrom` (`chrom`,`bin`),
KEY `name` (`name`),
KEY `name2` (`name2`),
KEY `annot` (`txStart`,`txEnd`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 ;

Answer 1

You should index table_1.start, reference.txStart, table_1.end and reference.txEnd table fields:
ALTER TABLE `table_1` ADD INDEX ( `start` ) ;
ALTER TABLE `table_1` ADD INDEX ( `end` ) ;
ALTER TABLE `reference` ADD INDEX ( `txStart` ) ;
ALTER TABLE `reference` ADD INDEX ( `txEnd` ) ;

Answer 2

Cross joins are Cartesian Products, which are probably one of the most computationally expensive things to compute (they don't scale well).
For each table T_i for i = 1 to n, the number of rows generated by crossing tables T_1 to T_n is the size of each table multiplied by the size of each other table, ie
|T_1| * |T_2| * ... * |T_n|
Assuming each table has M rows, the resulting cost of computing the cross join is then
M_1 * M_2 ... M_n = O(M^n)
which is exponential in the number of tables involved in the join.

Answer 3

I see 2 problems with the UPDATE statement.
There is no index for the End fields. The compound indexes (annot) you have will be used only for the start fields in this query. You should add them as suggested by Emre:
ALTER TABLE `table_1` ADD INDEX ( `end` ) ;
ALTER TABLE `reference` ADD INDEX ( `txEnd` ) ;
Second, the JOIN may (and probably does) find many rows of table reference that are related to a row of table_1. So some (or all) rows of table_1 that are updated, are updated many times. Check the result of this query, to see if it is the same as your updated rows count (17311434):
SELECT COUNT(*)
FROM table_1
WHERE EXISTS
( SELECT *
FROM reference
WHERE table_1.start >= reference.txStart
AND table_1.`end` <= reference.txEnd
)
There can be other ways to write this query but the lack of a PRIMARY KEY on both tables makes it harder. If you define a primary key on table_1, try this, replacing id with the primary key.
Update: No, do not try it on a table with 34M rows. Check the execution plan and try with smaller tables first.
UPDATE table_1 AS t1
JOIN
( SELECT t2.id
, r.name
FROM table_1 AS t2
JOIN
( SELECT name, txStart, txEnd
FROM reference
GROUP BY txStart, txEnd
) AS r
ON t2.start >= r.txStart
AND t2.`end` <= r.txEnd
GROUP BY t2.id
) AS good
ON good.id = t1.id
SET t1.name = good.name;
You can check the query plan by running EXPLAIN on the equivalent SELECT:
EXPLAIN
SELECT t1.id, t1.name, good.name
FROM table_1 AS t1
JOIN
( SELECT t2.id
, r.name
FROM table_1 AS t2
JOIN
( SELECT name, txStart, txEnd
FROM reference
GROUP BY txStart, txEnd
) AS r
ON t2.start >= r.txStart
AND t2.`end` <= r.txEnd
GROUP BY t2.id
) AS good
ON good.id = t1.id ;

Answer 4

Try this:
UPDATE table_1 SET
table_1.name = (
select reference.name
from reference
where table_1.start >= reference.txStart
and table_1.end <= reference.txEnd)

Answer 5

Somebody already offered you to add some indexes. But I think the best performance you may get with these two indexes:
ALTER TABLE `test`.`time`
ADD INDEX `reference_start_end` (`txStart` ASC, `txEnd` ASC),
ADD INDEX `table_1_star_end` (`start` ASC, `end` ASC);
Only one of them will be used by MySQL query, but MySQL will decide which is more useful automatically.