Fastest way to do SELECT * WHERE not null - sql

I'm wondering what is the fastest way to get all non null rows. I've thought of these :
SELECT * FROM table WHERE column IS NOT NULL
SELECT * FROM table WHERE column = column
SELECT * FROM table WHERE column LIKE '%'
(I don't know how to measure execution time in SQL and/or Hive, and from repeatedly trying on a 4M lines table in pgAdmin, I get no noticeable difference.)

You will never notice any difference in performance when running those queries on Hive because these operations are quite simple and run on mappers which are running in parallel.
Initializing/starting mappers takes a lot more time than the possible difference in execution time of these queries and adds a lot of heuristics to the total execution time because mappers may be waiting resources and not running at all.
But you can try to measure time, see this answer about how to measure execution time: https://stackoverflow.com/a/44872319/2700344
SELECT * FROM table WHERE column IS NOT NULL is more straightforward (understandable/readable) though all of queries are correct.

Related

INSERT INTO SELECT and SELECT INTO take much longer than the SELECT

I've got a SELECT statement which takes around 500-600ms to execute. If I use the same SELECT in a INSERT INTO ... SELECT ... or SELECT ... INTO it takes up to 30 seconds.
The table is more like a data copy of a view, for performance reasons which gets truncated and filled with the data from time to time. So my SQL looks like:
TRUNCATE myTable
INSERT INTO myTable (col, col, col) SELECT col, col, col FROM otherTable INNER JOIN ...
I tried multiple things like inserting the data into a temp table so no indexes etc. are on the table (well I also tried dropping the indexes from the original table) but nothing seems to help. If I'm inserting the data into the temp table first (which also takes 30 seconds) and then copy it to the real table, the copy itself is pretty fast (< 1 second).
The query results in ~3800 rows and like 30-40 columns.
The second time executing the Truncate-INSERT INTO/SELECT INTO sql takes less than a second (until I clear all caches). The execution plans look the same, except for the Table Insert which has a cost of 90%.
Also tried to get rid of any implicit conversions but that didnt help either.
Someone knows how this can be possible or how I could find the problem? The problem exists on multiple systems running Sql Server 2014/2016.
Edit: Just saw the execution plan of my SELECT shows an "Excessiv Grant" message as it estimated ~11000 rows but the result is only ~3800 rows. Could that be a reason for the slow insert?
I've just had the same problem. All the data types, sizes & allow-NULLS were the same in my SELECT and target table. I tried changing the table to a HEAP, then a cluster, but it made no difference. The SELECT took around 15 seconds but with the INSERT it took around 4 minutes.
In my case, I ended up using SELECT INTO a temp table, then SELECTing from that into my real table, and it reverted back to 15 seconds or so.
The OP said they tried this and it didn't work, but it may do for some people.
I had identical problem.
Select takes around 900ms to execute insert / select into took more then 2 minutes.
I have re written select to improve performance - just few ms for select but it have great improvement for insert.
Try to simplify query plan as much is possible.
for example if you have multiple joins try to prepare multi - steps solution.
For what it's worth now, I had a similar problem just today. It turned out that the table I was inserting into had INT types, and the table I was selecting from had SMALLINT types. Thus, a type conversion was going on (several times) for each row.
Once I changed the target table to have the same types as the source table, then the insertion and selection took the same order of magnitude.

Query is very slow when we put a where clause on the total selected data by query

I am running a query which is selecting data on the basis of joins between 6-7 tables. When I execute the query it is taking 3-4 seconds to complete. But when I put a where clause on the fetched data it's taking more than one minute to execute. My query is fetching large amounts of data so I can't write it here but the situation I faced is explained below:
Select Category,x,y,z
from
(
---Sample Query
) as a
it's only taking 3-4 seconds to execute. But
Select Category,x,y,z
from
(
---Sample Query
) as a
where category Like 'Spart%'
is taking more than 2-3 minutes to execute.
Why is it taking more time to execute when I use the where clause?
It's impossible to say exactly what the issue is without seeing the full query. It is likely that the optimiser is pushing the WHERE into the "Sample query" in a way that is not performant. Possibly could be resolved by updating statistics on the table, but an easier option would be to insert the whole query into a temporary table, and filter from there.
Select Category,x,y,z
INTO #temp
from
(
---Sample Query
) as a
SELECT * FROM #temp WHERE category Like 'Spart%'
This will force the optimiser to tackle it in the logical order of pulling your data together before applying the WHERE to the end result. You might like to consider indexing the temp table's category field also.
If you're using MS SQL by checking the management studio actual execution plan it may already suggest an index creation
In any case, you should add to the index used by the query the column "Category"
If you don't have an index on that table create it composed by column "Category" and all the other columns used in join or where
bear in mind by using like 'text%' clause you could end in index scan and not index seek

Simple select from table takes 24 seconds in SQL Server 2014

I have a table named [cwbOrder] that currently has 1.277.469 rows. I am using SQL Server 2014 and I am doing these tests on a UAT environment, on production this query takes a little bit longer.
If I try selecting all of the rows like using:
SELECT * FROM cwbOrder
It takes 24 seconds to retrieve all of the data from the table. I have read about how it is important to index columns used in the predicates (WHERE), but I still cannot understand how does a simple select take 24 seconds.
Using this table in other more complex queries generates a lot of extra workload for the query, although I have created the JOINs on indexed columns. Additionally I have selected only 2 columns from this table then JOINED it to another table and this operation still takes a significantly long amount of time. As an example please consider the below query:
Below I have attached the index structure of both tables, to illustrate the matter:
PK_cwbOrder is the index on the id_cwbOrder column in the cwbOrder table.
Edit 1: I have added the execution plan for the query in which I join the cwbOrder table with the cwbAction table.
Is there any way, considering the information above, that I can make this query faster?
There are many reasons why such a select could be slow:
The row size or number of rows could be very large, requiring a lot of time to transport or delay.
Other operations on the table could have locks on the table.
The database server or network could be very busy.
The "table" could really be a view that is running a complicated query.
You can test different aspects. For instance:
SELECT TOP 10 <one column here>
FROM cwbOrder o
This returns a very small result set and reads just a small part of the table. This reads the entire table but returns a small result set:
SELECT COUNT(*)
FROM cwbOrder o

Query execution time reduction

How to reduce the execution time of this simple SQL query in SQL Server?
select *
from companybackup
where tiRecordStatus = 1
and (iAccessCode < 3 or chUpdateBy = SUSER_SNAME())
It has nearly 38,681 rows and taking nearly 10 minutes 23 seconds. The table is having 50 columns and even I created indexes on all columns to reduce the time but it didn't succeed, even I checked with nolock option and all the available solutions but couldn't reduce the execution time.
What might be the issue?
If this is a critical query, you can create an index designed just for it:
CREATE INDEX ix_MyIndexNameHere ON CompanyBackup
(tiRecordStatus, iAccesscode, chUpdateBy)
This will still require a key lookup since you are returning all fields with *, but it's a lot better than a bunch of single-field indexes.
I am wondering what does the SUSER_SNAME() function do, now it gets executed on every row. Can you try getting that function return value to parameter and then execute the query?
If the function is costly this will reduce execution time by a huge margin.
edit. Can anyone tell me why I can not post some SQL clauses and some I can? Cant post DECLARE syntax.
You haven't given much info, but splitting OR into a union of two queries can often help (optimisers have trouble with OR):
select *
from companybackup
where tiRecordStatus = 1
and iAccessCode < 3
union
select *
from companybackup
where tiRecordStatus = 1
and chUpdateBy = SUSER_SNAME())
If this doesn't help, try creating these indexes:
create index idx1 on companybackup(tiRecordStatus, iAccessCode);
create index idx2 on companybackup(chUpdateBy, tiRecordStatus);
Then force a recalculation if the distribution of index values:
update statistics companybackup;

SQL massive performance difference using SELECT TOP x even when x is much higher than selected rows

I'm selecting some rows from a table valued function but have found an inexplicable massive performance difference by putting SELECT TOP in the query.
SELECT col1, col2, col3 etc
FROM dbo.some_table_function
WHERE col1 = #parameter
--ORDER BY col1
is taking upwards of 5 or 6 mins to complete.
However
SELECT TOP 6000 col1, col2, col3 etc
FROM dbo.some_table_function
WHERE col1 = #parameter
--ORDER BY col1
completes in about 4 or 5 seconds.
This wouldn't surprise me if the returned set of data were huge, but the particular query involved returns ~5000 rows out of 200,000.
So in both cases, the whole of the table is processed, as SQL Server continues to the end in search of 6000 rows which it will never get to. Why the massive difference then? Is this something to do with the way SQL Server allocates space in anticipation of the result set size (the TOP 6000 thereby giving it a low requirement which is more easily allocated in memory)?
Has anyone else witnessed something like this?
Thanks
Table valued functions can have a non-linear execution time.
Let's consider function equivalent for this query:
SELECT (
SELECT SUM(mi.value)
FROM mytable mi
WHERE mi.id <= mo.id
)
FROM mytable mo
ORDER BY
mo.value
This query (that calculates the running SUM) is fast at the beginning and slow at the end, since on each row from mo it should sum all the preceding values which requires rewinding the rowsource.
Time taken to calculate SUM for each row increases as the row numbers increase.
If you make mytable large enough (say, 100,000 rows, as in your example) and run this query you will see that it takes considerable time.
However, if you apply TOP 5000 to this query you will see that it completes much faster than 1/20 of the time required for the full table.
Most probably, something similar happens in your case too.
To say something more definitely, I need to see the function definition.
Update:
SQL Server can push predicates into the function.
For instance, I just created this TVF:
CREATE FUNCTION fn_test()
RETURNS TABLE
AS
RETURN (
SELECT *
FROM master
);
These queries:
SELECT *
FROM fn_test()
WHERE name = #name
SELECT TOP 1000 *
FROM fn_test()
WHERE name = #name
yield different execution plans (the first one uses clustered scan, the second one uses an index seek with a TOP)
I had the same problem, a simple query joining five tables returning 1000 rows took two minutes to complete. When I added "TOP 10000" to it it completed in less than one second. It turned out that the clustered index on one of the tables was heavily fragmented.
After rebuilding the index the query now completes in less than a second.
Your TOP has no ORDER BY, so it's simply the same as SET ROWCOUNT 6000 first. An ORDER BY would require all rows to be evaluated first, and it's would take a lot longer.
If dbo.some_table_function is a inline table valued udf, then it's simply a macro that's expanded so it returns the first 6000 rows as mentioned in no particular order.
If the udf is multi valued, then it's a black box and will always pull in the full dataset before filtering. I don't think this is happening.
Not directly related, but another SO question on TVFs
You may be running into something as simple as caching here - perhaps (for whatever reason) the "TOP" query is cached? Using an index that the other isn't?
In any case the best way to quench your curiosity is to examine the full execution plan for both queries. You can do this right in SQL Management Console and it'll tell you EXACTLY what operations are being completed and how long each is predicted to take.
All SQL implementations are quirky in their own way - SQL Server's no exception. These kind of "whaaaaaa?!" moments are pretty common. ;^)
It's not necessarily true that the whole table is processed if col1 has an index.
The SQL optimization will choose whether or not to use an index. Perhaps your "TOP" is forcing it to use the index.
If you are using the MSSQL Query Analyzer (The name escapes me) hit Ctrl-K. This will show the execution plan for the query instead of executing it. Mousing over the icons will show the IO/CPU usage, I believe.
I bet one is using an index seek, while the other isn't.
If you have a generic client:
SET SHOWPLAN_ALL ON;
GO
select ...;
go
see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms187735.aspx for details.
I think Quassnois' suggestion seems very plausible. By adding TOP 6000 you are implicitly giving the optimizer a hint that a fairly small subset of the 200,000 rows are going to be returned. The optimizer then uses an index seek instead of an clustered index scan or table scan.
Another possible explanation could caching, as Jim davis suggests. This is fairly easy to rule out by running the queries again. Try running the one with TOP 6000 first.