Re: optimizing query with multiple aggregates

Hello,

I didn't try it, but following should be slightly faster:

COUNT( CASE WHEN field >= x AND field < y THEN true END)
intead of
SUM( CASE WHEN field >= x AND field < y THEN 1 ELSE 0 END)

HTH,

Marc Mamin

________________________________

From: pgsql-performance-owner(at)postgresql(dot)org
[mailto:pgsql-performance-owner(at)postgresql(dot)org] On Behalf Of Nikolas
Everett
Sent: Thursday, October 22, 2009 4:48 AM
To: Doug Cole
Cc: pgsql-performance
Subject: Re: [PERFORM] optimizing query with multiple aggregates

So you've got a query like:

SELECT SUM(CASE WHEN field >= 0 AND field < 10 THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) as
zeroToTen,
SUM(CASE WHEN field >= 10 AND field < 20 THEN 1 ELSE 0
END) as tenToTwenty,
SUM(CASE WHEN field >= 20 AND field < 30 THEN 1 ELSE 0
END) as tenToTwenty,
...
FROM bigtable

My guess is this forcing a whole bunch of if checks and your getting cpu
bound. Could you try something like:

SELECT SUM(CASE WHEN field >= 0 AND field < 10 THEN count ELSE 0 END) as
zeroToTen,
SUM(CASE WHEN field >= 10 AND field < 20 THEN count ELSE 0
END) as tenToTwenty,
SUM(CASE WHEN field >= 20 AND field < 30 THEN count ELSE 0
END) as tenToTwenty,
...
FROM (SELECT field, count(*) FROM bigtable GROUP BY field)

which will allow a hash aggregate? You'd do a hash aggregate on the
whole table which should be quick and then you'd summarize your bins.

This all supposes that you don't want to just query postgres's column
statistics.

On Wed, Oct 21, 2009 at 10:21 PM, Doug Cole <dougcole(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:

On Wed, Oct 21, 2009 at 5:39 PM, Merlin Moncure
<mmoncure(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Oct 21, 2009 at 6:51 PM, Doug Cole
<dougcole(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> > I have a reporting query that is taking nearly all of it's
time in aggregate
> > functions and I'm trying to figure out how to optimize it.
The query takes
> > approximately 170ms when run with "select *", but when run
with all the
> > aggregate functions the query takes 18 seconds. The
slowness comes from our
> > attempt to find distribution data using selects of the form:
> >
> > SUM(CASE WHEN field >= x AND field < y THEN 1 ELSE 0 END)
> >
> > repeated across many different x,y values and fields to
build out several
> > histograms of the data. The main culprit appears to be the
CASE statement,
> > but I'm not sure what to use instead. I'm sure other people
have had
> > similar queries and I was wondering what methods they used
to build out data
> > like this?
>
> have you tried:
>
> count(*) where field >= x AND field < y;
>
> ??
>
> merlin


Unless I'm misunderstanding you, that would require breaking
each bin
into a separate sql statement and since I'm trying to calculate
more
than 100 bins between the different fields any improvement in
the
aggregate functions would be overwhelmed by the cost of the
actual
query, which is about 170ms.
Thanks,
Doug

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