Re: help optimise this ?

Peter Galbavy wrote:
> I have a table of image 'instances' where the columns include:
>
> md5 char(32), -- the 'original' image md5 key
> file_md5 char(32) primary key, -- the md5 of each version of an
> image image_width int,
> image_length int
>
> I want to then find either the largest (max) or smallest (min)
> version of an image that falls within some range of sizes:
>
> e.g.
>
> select file_md5 from image_instance
> where image_width =
> (select min(image_width) from image_instance where md5 =
> '546b94e94851a56ee721f3b755f58462')
> and image_length =
> (select min(image_length) from image_instance where md5 =
> '546b94e94851a56ee721f3b755f58462')
> and md5 = '546b94e94851a56ee721f3b755f58462'
> and image_width between 0 and 160
> and image_length between 0 and 160;
>
> Now, having to do three selects on 'md5' to limit the search seems a
> little unoptimal to me. Note that the test tables are small and I
> have no other indexes apart from the 'primary key' constraint yet -
> this is not my primary concern at this point, I would just like
> cleaner SQL.
>
> All I want back is (for some definition) the 'file_md5' that best
> matches my min/max criteria.
>
> I have not - and will leave for now - the case where a cropped image
> results in a scale change between width and length such that the
> min/max test returns a different set of rows for each dimension. Argh.
>
> And help given is greatly appreciated.
>
> rgds,
> --
> Peter
>
If you are willing to use pgsqlism how about:
select file_md5 from image_instance WHERE
md5 = '546b94e94851a56ee721f3b755f58462' AND
image_width between 0 and 160 AND
image_length between 0 and 160 AND
ORDER BY image_width::int8*image_length::int8 LIMIT 1

This should get the smallest overall image size within your bounds.
It might be faster to do ORDER BY image_width,image_length LIMIT 1
but this wouldn't necessarily give the smallest if the aspect ratio changed
hth,
- Stuart