Re: Optimize query for listing un-read messages

On 1.5.2014 23:58, Andreas Joseph Krogh wrote:
> På torsdag 01. mai 2014 kl. 23:45:49, skrev Tomas Vondra <tv(at)fuzzy(dot)cz
> <mailto:tv(at)fuzzy(dot)cz>>:
>
> On 1.5.2014 23:19, Andreas Joseph Krogh wrote:
> > Just curious:
> > Is such a JOIN index possible in other DBs, if so - which?
> > Can other DBs do index on difference between two sets?
> > Will PG ever have this, is it even possible?
>
> I'm not aware of such database, but maybe it's possible at least for
> some cases. But I'd expect that to significantly depend on the schema.
> And I'm not aware of any such effort in case of PostgreSQL, do don't
> hold your breath.
>
> IMHO the problem with your schema is that while each 'read' message has
> a matching row in message_property, 'undread' messages may or may not
> have a matching row. Is there a particular reason for that?
>
>
>
> Yes. The point is that maintaining a message_property pair for all
> messages for all users in the system imposes quite a
> maintainance-headache. As the schema is now any new message is per
> definition un-read, and when a user reads it then it gets an entry with
> is_read=true in message_property. This table holds other properties too.
> This way I'm avoiding having to book-keep so much when a new message
> arrives and when a new user is created. A message in my system does not
> necessarily have only one recipient, it might have one, many or none,
> and might be visible to many.

So how do you determine who's the recipient of a message? Or is that the
case that everyone can read everything (which is why you're displaying
them the unread messages, right)?

I understand you're trying to solve this without storing a row for each
possible message-person combination, but won't this eventually happen
anyway (with is_read=true for all rows)?

Tomas