Clickhouse join with condition - sql

Question

I found strange thing, the query:
SELECT *
FROM progress as pp
ALL LEFT JOIN links as ll USING (viewId)
WHERE viewId = 'a776a2f2-16ad-448a-858d-891e68bec9a8'
Result: 0 rows in set. Elapsed: 5.267 sec. Processed 8.62 million rows, 484.94 MB (1.64 million rows/s., 92.08 MB/s.)
Here modified query:
SELECT *
FROM
(SELECT *
FROM progress
WHERE viewId = 'a776a2f2-16ad-448a-858d-891e68bec9a8') AS p ALL
LEFT JOIN
(SELECT *
FROM links
WHERE viewId = toUUID('a776a2f2-16ad-448a-858d-891e68bec9a8')) AS l ON p.viewId = l.viewId;
Result : 0 rows in set. Elapsed: 0.076 sec. Processed 4.48 million rows, 161.35 MB (58.69 million rows/s., 2.12 GB/s.)
But it looks dirty.
Isn't it supposed to optimize the query considering where condition?
What is the right way to write the query here, and what if it will be where in?
Then I try to add another join:
SELECT *
FROM
(SELECT videoUuid AS contentUuid,
viewId
FROM
(SELECT *
FROM progress
WHERE viewId = 'a776a2f2-16ad-448a-858d-891e68bec9a8') p ALL
LEFT JOIN
(SELECT *
FROM links
WHERE viewId = toUUID('a776a2f2-16ad-448a-858d-891e68bec9a8')) USING `viewId`) ALL
LEFT JOIN `metaInfo` USING `viewId`,
`contentUuid`;
The result again very slow, considering that I want just join 3 tables with condition selection one row:
0 rows in set. Elapsed: 1.747 sec. Processed 9.13 million rows, 726.55 MB (5.22 million rows/s., 415.85 MB/s.)

Answer 1

At this moment the CH not very good cope with multi-joins queries (DB star-schema) and the query optimizer not good enough to rely on it completely.
So it needs to explicitly say how to 'execute' a query by using subqueries instead of joins.
Consider the test query:
SELECT table_01.number AS r
FROM numbers(87654321) AS table_01
INNER JOIN numbers(7654321) AS table_02 ON (table_01.number = table_02.number)
INNER JOIN numbers(654321) AS table_03 ON (table_02.number = table_03.number)
INNER JOIN numbers(54321) AS table_04 ON (table_03.number = table_04.number)
WHERE r = 54320
/*
┌─────r─┐
│ 54320 │
└───────┘
1 rows in set. Elapsed: 6.261 sec. Processed 96.06 million rows, 768.52 MB (15.34 million rows/s., 122.74 MB/s.)
*/
Let's rewrite it using subqueries to significantly speed it up.
SELECT number AS r
FROM numbers(87654321)
WHERE r = 54320 AND number IN (
SELECT number AS r
FROM numbers(7654321)
WHERE r = 54320 AND number IN (
SELECT number AS r
FROM numbers(654321)
WHERE r = 54320 AND number IN (
SELECT number AS r
FROM numbers(54321)
WHERE r = 54320
)
)
)
/*
┌─────r─┐
│ 54320 │
└───────┘
1 rows in set. Elapsed: 0.481 sec. Processed 96.06 million rows, 768.52 MB (199.69 million rows/s., 1.60 GB/s.)
*/
There are other ways to optimize JOIN:
use External dictionary to get rid of join on 'small'-table
use Join table engine
use ANY-strictness
use specific settings like join_algorithm, partial_merge_join_optimizations etc
Some useful refs:
Altinity webinar: Tips and tricks every ClickHouse user should know
Altinity webinar: Secrets of ClickHouse Query Performance

Answer 2

Isn't it supposed to optimize the query concidering where condition?
Such optimization is not implemented yet

Answer 3

It is expected behavior.
According to CH doc https://clickhouse.tech/docs/en/sql-reference/statements/select/join/#performance "When running a JOIN, there is no optimization of the order of execution in relation to other stages of the query. The join (a search in the right table) is run before filtering in WHERE and before aggregation."