how to improve the performance on this type of Query? - sql

Question

I have query that I am searching for a range of user accounts but every time I pass query I will be using multiple id number's first 5 digits and based on that I will searching. I wanted to know is there any other way to re-write this query for user Id range when we use more than 10 userIDs to search? Is there going to be huge performance hit with this kind of search in query?
example:
select A.col1,B.col2,B.col3
from table1 A,table2 B
where A.col2=B.col2
and (B.col_id like '12345%'
OR B.col_id like '47474%'
OR B.col_id like '59598%');
I am using Oracle11g.

Answer 1

Actually it is not important how many UserIDs you will pass to the query. The most considerable part is what is selectivity of your query. In other words: how many rows will return your query and how many rows are there in your tables. If the number of returned rows is relatively small then it is good idea to create an index on column B.col_id. There is also nothing bad in using OR condition. Basically each OR will add one more INDEX RANGE SCAN to the execution plan with final CONCATENATION (but you'd rather check your actual plan to be sure). If the total cost of all that operations are lower than full table scan then Oracle CBO will use your index. In other case if you select >=20-30% of data at once then full table scan is most likely to happen and you should even less be worried about OR because all data will be read and comparing each value with your multiple conditions won't add much overhead.

Answer 2

Generally the use of LIKE makes it impossible for Oracle to use indexes.
If the query is going to be reused, consider creating a synthetic column with the first 5 characters of COL_ID. Put a non-unique index on it. Put your search keys in a table and join that to that column.
There may be a way to do it with a functional index on the first 5 characters.

Answer 3

I don't know if the performance will be better or not, but another way to write this is with a union:
select A.col1,B.col2,B.col3
from table1 A,table2 B
where A.col2=B.col2
and (A.col_id like '12345%')
union all
select A.col1,B.col2,B.col3
from table1 A,table2 B
where A.col2=B.col2
and (A.col_id like '47474%') -- you did mean A.col_id again, right?
union all
select A.col1,B.col2,B.col3
from table1 A,table2 B
where A.col2=B.col2
and (A.col_id like '59598%'); -- and A.col_id here too?