assymetry updating a boolean (=FALSE faster than =TRUE)

From: "George Pavlov" <gpavlov(at)mynewplace(dot)com>
To: <pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org>
Subject: assymetry updating a boolean (=FALSE faster than =TRUE)
Date: 2006-05-23 21:55:03
Message-ID: 8C5B026B51B6854CBE88121DBF097A861511D6@ehost010-33.exch010.intermedia.net
Views: Raw Message | Whole Thread | Download mbox | Resend email
Thread:
Lists: pgsql-general

Here is something that seems anomalous to me: when I set a boolean field
to FALSE performance is much better than when I set it to TRUE. Any
reason for FALSE to be favored over TRUE?

Some details:

vacuum analyze my_table;
update my_table set is_foo=FALSE where some_id = 47;
--142 rows affected, 8047 ms execution time.
vacuum analyze my_table;
update my_table set is_foo=TRUE where some_id = 47;
--142 rows affected, 48609 ms execution time.

I have run these kinds of queries repeatedly and the timing above is
representative--the setting to FALSE case is about 6 times more
performant. The table my_table has about 105K rows and has many other
columns of various types. Thre is a trigger on the table, but it does
not do anything special based on this column's value. The some_id column
is indexed. This is on PG 8.1.3 on Linux.

George

Responses

Browse pgsql-general by date

  From Date Subject
Next Message Jim C. Nasby 2006-05-23 21:57:00 Re: Insert into partition table hangs
Previous Message Joel Alejandro Espinosa Carra 2006-05-23 20:31:06 JDBC issue