When using the MyISAM storage engine, MySQL uses extremely fast table locking that allows multiple readers or a single writer. The biggest problem with this storage engine occurs when you have a steady stream of mixed updates and slow selects on a single table. If this is a problem for certain tables, you can use another storage engine for them. See Chapter 13, Storage Engines.

MySQL can work with both transactional and non-transactional tables. To make it easier to work smoothly with non-transactional tables (which cannot roll back if something goes wrong), MySQL has the following rules. Note that these rules apply only when not running in strict SQL mode or if you use the IGNORE specifier for INSERT or UPDATE.

To change the preceding behaviors, you can enable stricter data handling by setting the server SQL mode appropriately. For more information about data handling, see Section 1.8.6, “How MySQL Deals with Constraints”, Section 5.1.7, “SQL Modes”, and Section 12.2.4, “INSERT Syntax”.

Because all SQL servers implement different parts of standard SQL, it takes work to write portable database applications. It is very easy to achieve portability for very simple selects and inserts, but becomes more difficult the more capabilities you require. If you want an application that is fast with many database systems, it becomes even more difficult.

All database systems have some weak points. That is, they have different design compromises that lead to different behavior.

To make a complex application portable, you need to determine which SQL servers it must work with, and then determine what features those servers support. You can use the MySQL crash-me program to find functions, types, and limits that you can use with a selection of database servers. crash-me does not check for every possible feature, but it is still reasonably comprehensive, performing about 450 tests. An example of the type of information crash-me can provide is that you should not use column names that are longer than 18 characters if you want to be able to use Informix or DB2.

The crash-me program and the MySQL benchmarks are all very database independent. By taking a look at how they are written, you can get a feeling for what you must do to make your own applications database independent. The programs can be found in the sql-bench directory of MySQL source distributions. They are written in Perl and use the DBI database interface. Use of DBI in itself solves part of the portability problem because it provides database-independent access methods. See Section 7.1.4, “The MySQL Benchmark Suite”.

If you strive for database independence, you need to get a good feeling for each SQL server's bottlenecks. For example, MySQL is very fast in retrieving and updating rows for MyISAM tables, but has a problem in mixing slow readers and writers on the same table. Transactional database systems in general are not very good at generating summary tables from log tables, because in this case row locking is almost useless.

MySQL Enterprise For expert advice on choosing the database engine suitable to your circumstances subscribe to the MySQL Enterprise Monitor. For more information, see http://www.mysql.com/products/enterprise/advisors.html.

To make your application really database independent, you should define an easily extendable interface through which you manipulate your data. For example, C++ is available on most systems, so it makes sense to use a C++ class-based interface to the databases.

If you use some feature that is specific to a given database system (such as the REPLACE statement, which is specific to MySQL), you should implement the same feature for other SQL servers by coding an alternative method. Although the alternative might be slower, it enables the other servers to perform the same tasks.

With MySQL, you can use the /*! */ syntax to add MySQL-specific keywords to a statement. The code inside /* */ is treated as a comment (and ignored) by most other SQL servers. For information about writing comments, see Section 8.5, “Comment Syntax”.

If high performance is more important than exactness, as for some Web applications, it is possible to create an application layer that caches all results to give you even higher performance. By letting old results expire after a while, you can keep the cache reasonably fresh. This provides a method to handle high load spikes, in which case you can dynamically increase the cache size and set the expiration timeout higher until things get back to normal.

In this case, the table creation information should contain information about the initial cache size and how often the table should normally be refreshed.

An attractive alternative to implementing an application cache is to use the MySQL query cache. By enabling the query cache, the server handles the details of determining whether a query result can be reused. This simplifies your application. See Section 7.5.4, “The MySQL Query Cache”.

This section describes an early application for MySQL.

During MySQL initial development, the features of MySQL were made to fit our largest customer, which handled data warehousing for a couple of the largest retailers in Sweden.

From all stores, we got weekly summaries of all bonus card transactions, and were expected to provide useful information for the store owners to help them find how their advertising campaigns were affecting their own customers.

The volume of data was quite huge (about seven million summary transactions per month), and we had data for 4–10 years that we needed to present to the users. We got weekly requests from our customers, who wanted instant access to new reports from this data.

We solved this problem by storing all information per month in compressed “transaction tables.” We had a set of simple macros that generated summary tables grouped by different criteria (product group, customer id, store, and so on) from the tables in which the transactions were stored. The reports were Web pages that were dynamically generated by a small Perl script. This script parsed a Web page, executed the SQL statements in it, and inserted the results. We would have used PHP or mod_perl instead, but they were not available at the time.

For graphical data, we wrote a simple tool in C that could process SQL query results and produce GIF images based on those results. This tool also was dynamically executed from the Perl script that parses the Web pages.

In most cases, a new report could be created simply by copying an existing script and modifying the SQL query that it used. In some cases, we needed to add more columns to an existing summary table or generate a new one. This also was quite simple because we kept all transaction-storage tables on disk. (This amounted to about 50GB of transaction tables and 200GB of other customer data.)

We also let our customers access the summary tables directly with ODBC so that the advanced users could experiment with the data themselves.

This system worked well and we had no problems handling the data with quite modest Sun Ultra SPARCstation hardware (2×200MHz). Eventually the system was migrated to Linux.

This benchmark suite is meant to tell any user what operations a given SQL implementation performs well or poorly. You can get a good idea for how the benchmarks work by looking at the code and results in the sql-bench directory in any MySQL source distribution.

Note that this benchmark is single-threaded, so it measures the minimum time for the operations performed. We plan to add multi-threaded tests to the benchmark suite in the future.

To use the benchmark suite, the following requirements must be satisfied:

After you obtain a MySQL source distribution, you can find the benchmark suite located in its sql-bench directory. To run the benchmark tests, build MySQL, and then change location into the sql-bench directory and execute the run-all-tests script:

shell> cd sql-bench
shell> perl run-all-tests --server=server_name

server_name should be the name of one of the supported servers. To get a list of all options and supported servers, invoke this command:

shell> perl run-all-tests --help

The crash-me script also is located in the sql-bench directory. crash-me tries to determine what features a database system supports and what its capabilities and limitations are by actually running queries. For example, it determines:

For more information about benchmark results, visit http://www.mysql.com/why-mysql/benchmarks/.

You should definitely benchmark your application and database to find out where the bottlenecks are. After fixing one bottleneck (or by replacing it with a “dummy” module), you can proceed to identify the next bottleneck. Even if the overall performance for your application currently is acceptable, you should at least make a plan for each bottleneck and decide how to solve it if someday you really need the extra performance.

For examples of portable benchmark programs, look at those in the MySQL benchmark suite. See Section 7.1.4, “The MySQL Benchmark Suite”. You can take any program from this suite and modify it for your own needs. By doing this, you can try different solutions to your problem and test which really is fastest for you.

Another free benchmark suite is the Open Source Database Benchmark, available at http://osdb.sourceforge.net/.

It is very common for a problem to occur only when the system is very heavily loaded. We have had many customers who contact us when they have a (tested) system in production and have encountered load problems. In most cases, performance problems turn out to be due to issues of basic database design (for example, table scans are not good under high load) or problems with the operating system or libraries. Most of the time, these problems would be much easier to fix if the systems were not already in production.

To avoid problems like this, you should put some effort into benchmarking your whole application under the worst possible load. You can use Super Smack, available at http://jeremy.zawodny.com/mysql/super-smack/. As suggested by its name, it can bring a system to its knees, so make sure to use it only on your development systems.

The EXPLAIN statement can be used either as a synonym for DESCRIBE or as a way to obtain information about how MySQL executes a SELECT statement:

This section describes the second use of EXPLAIN for obtaining query execution plan information. See also Section 12.3.2, “EXPLAIN Syntax”. For a description of the DESCRIBE and SHOW COLUMNS statements, see Section 12.3.1, “DESCRIBE Syntax”, and Section 12.5.5.5, “SHOW COLUMNS Syntax”.

With the help of EXPLAIN, you can see where you should add indexes to tables to get a faster SELECT that uses indexes to find rows. You can also use EXPLAIN to check whether the optimizer joins the tables in an optimal order. To give a hint to the optimizer to use a join order corresponding to the order in which the tables are named in the SELECT statement, begin the statement with SELECT STRAIGHT_JOIN rather than just SELECT. (See Section 12.2.7, “SELECT Syntax”.)

If you have a problem with indexes not being used when you believe that they should be, you should run ANALYZE TABLE to update table statistics such as cardinality of keys, that can affect the choices the optimizer makes. See Section 12.5.2.1, “ANALYZE TABLE Syntax”.

EXPLAIN returns a row of information for each table used in the SELECT statement. The tables are listed in the output in the order that MySQL would read them while processing the query. MySQL resolves all joins using a single-sweep multi-join method. This means that MySQL reads a row from the first table, and then finds a matching row in the second table, the third table, and so on. When all tables are processed, MySQL outputs the selected columns and backtracks through the table list until a table is found for which there are more matching rows. The next row is read from this table and the process continues with the next table.

When the EXTENDED keyword is used, EXPLAIN produces extra information that can be viewed by issuing a SHOW WARNINGS statement following the EXPLAIN statement. This information displays how the optimizer qualifies table and column names in the SELECT statement, what the SELECT looks like after the application of rewriting and optimization rules, and possibly other notes about the optimization process.

Each output row from EXPLAIN provides information about one table, and each row contains the following columns:

You can get a good indication of how good a join is by taking the product of the values in the rows column of the EXPLAIN output. This should tell you roughly how many rows MySQL must examine to execute the query. If you restrict queries with the max_join_size system variable, this row product also is used to determine which multiple-table SELECT statements to execute and which to abort. See Section 7.5.2, “Tuning Server Parameters”.

The following example shows how a multiple-table join can be optimized progressively based on the information provided by EXPLAIN.

Suppose that you have the SELECT statement shown here and that you plan to examine it using EXPLAIN:

EXPLAIN SELECT tt.TicketNumber, tt.TimeIn,
               tt.ProjectReference, tt.EstimatedShipDate,
               tt.ActualShipDate, tt.ClientID,
               tt.ServiceCodes, tt.RepetitiveID,
               tt.CurrentProcess, tt.CurrentDPPerson,
               tt.RecordVolume, tt.DPPrinted, et.COUNTRY,
               et_1.COUNTRY, do.CUSTNAME
        FROM tt, et, et AS et_1, do
        WHERE tt.SubmitTime IS NULL
          AND tt.ActualPC = et.EMPLOYID
          AND tt.AssignedPC = et_1.EMPLOYID
          AND tt.ClientID = do.CUSTNMBR;

For this example, make the following assumptions:

Initially, before any optimizations have been performed, the EXPLAIN statement produces the following information:

table type possible_keys key  key_len ref  rows  Extra
et    ALL  PRIMARY       NULL NULL    NULL 74
do    ALL  PRIMARY       NULL NULL    NULL 2135
et_1  ALL  PRIMARY       NULL NULL    NULL 74
tt    ALL  AssignedPC,   NULL NULL    NULL 3872
           ClientID,
           ActualPC
      Range checked for each record (index map: 0x23)

Because type is ALL for each table, this output indicates that MySQL is generating a Cartesian product of all the tables; that is, every combination of rows. This takes quite a long time, because the product of the number of rows in each table must be examined. For the case at hand, this product is 74 × 2135 × 74 × 3872 = 45,268,558,720 rows. If the tables were bigger, you can only imagine how long it would take.

One problem here is that MySQL can use indexes on columns more efficiently if they are declared as the same type and size. In this context, VARCHAR and CHAR are considered the same if they are declared as the same size. tt.ActualPC is declared as CHAR(10) and et.EMPLOYID is CHAR(15), so there is a length mismatch.

To fix this disparity between column lengths, use ALTER TABLE to lengthen ActualPC from 10 characters to 15 characters:

mysql> ALTER TABLE tt MODIFY ActualPC VARCHAR(15);

Now tt.ActualPC and et.EMPLOYID are both VARCHAR(15). Executing the EXPLAIN statement again produces this result:

table type   possible_keys key     key_len ref         rows    Extra
tt    ALL    AssignedPC,   NULL    NULL    NULL        3872    Using
             ClientID,                                         where
             ActualPC
do    ALL    PRIMARY       NULL    NULL    NULL        2135
      Range checked for each record (index map: 0x1)
et_1  ALL    PRIMARY       NULL    NULL    NULL        74
      Range checked for each record (index map: 0x1)
et    eq_ref PRIMARY       PRIMARY 15      tt.ActualPC 1

This is not perfect, but is much better: The product of the rows values is less by a factor of 74. This version executes in a couple of seconds.

A second alteration can be made to eliminate the column length mismatches for the tt.AssignedPC = et_1.EMPLOYID and tt.ClientID = do.CUSTNMBR comparisons:

mysql> ALTER TABLE tt MODIFY AssignedPC VARCHAR(15),
    ->                MODIFY ClientID   VARCHAR(15);

After that modification, EXPLAIN produces the output shown here:

table type   possible_keys key      key_len ref           rows Extra
et    ALL    PRIMARY       NULL     NULL    NULL          74
tt    ref    AssignedPC,   ActualPC 15      et.EMPLOYID   52   Using
             ClientID,                                         where
             ActualPC
et_1  eq_ref PRIMARY       PRIMARY  15      tt.AssignedPC 1
do    eq_ref PRIMARY       PRIMARY  15      tt.ClientID   1

At this point, the query is optimized almost as well as possible. The remaining problem is that, by default, MySQL assumes that values in the tt.ActualPC column are evenly distributed, and that is not the case for the tt table. Fortunately, it is easy to tell MySQL to analyze the key distribution:

mysql> ANALYZE TABLE tt;

With the additional index information, the join is perfect and EXPLAIN produces this result:

table type   possible_keys key     key_len ref           rows Extra
tt    ALL    AssignedPC    NULL    NULL    NULL          3872 Using
             ClientID,                                        where
             ActualPC
et    eq_ref PRIMARY       PRIMARY 15      tt.ActualPC   1
et_1  eq_ref PRIMARY       PRIMARY 15      tt.AssignedPC 1
do    eq_ref PRIMARY       PRIMARY 15      tt.ClientID   1

Note that the rows column in the output from EXPLAIN is an educated guess from the MySQL join optimizer. You should check whether the numbers are even close to the truth by comparing the rows product with the actual number of rows that the query returns. If the numbers are quite different, you might get better performance by using STRAIGHT_JOIN in your SELECT statement and trying to list the tables in a different order in the FROM clause.

It is possible in some cases to execute statements that modify data when EXPLAIN SELECT is used with a subquery; for more information, see Section 12.2.8.8, “Subqueries in the FROM clause”.

MySQL Enterprise Subscribers to the MySQL Enterprise Monitor regularly receive expert advice on optimization. For more information, see http://www.mysql.com/products/enterprise/advisors.html.

In most cases, you can estimate query performance by counting disk seeks. For small tables, you can usually find a row in one disk seek (because the index is probably cached). For bigger tables, you can estimate that, using B-tree indexes, you need this many seeks to find a row: log(row_count) / log(index_block_length / 3 × 2 / (index_length + data_pointer_length)) + 1.

In MySQL, an index block is usually 1,024 bytes and the data pointer is usually four bytes. For a 500,000-row table with an index length of three bytes (the size of MEDIUMINT), the formula indicates log(500,000)/log(1024/3×2/(3+4)) + 1 = 4 seeks.

This index would require storage of about 500,000 × 7 × 3/2 = 5.2MB (assuming a typical index buffer fill ratio of 2/3), so you probably have much of the index in memory and so need only one or two calls to read data to find the row.

For writes, however, you need four seek requests to find where to place a new index value and normally two seeks to update the index and write the row.

Note that the preceding discussion does not mean that your application performance slowly degenerates by log N. As long as everything is cached by the OS or the MySQL server, things become only marginally slower as the table gets bigger. After the data gets too big to be cached, things start to go much slower until your applications are bound only by disk seeks (which increase by log N). To avoid this, increase the key cache size as the data grows. For MyISAM tables, the key cache size is controlled by the key_buffer_size system variable. See Section 7.5.2, “Tuning Server Parameters”.

MySQL Enterprise The MySQL Enterprise Monitor provides a number of advisors specifically designed to improve query performance. For more information see http://www.mysql.com/products/enterprise/advisors.html.

In general, when you want to make a slow SELECT ... WHERE query faster, the first thing to check is whether you can add an index. All references between different tables should usually be done with indexes. You can use the EXPLAIN statement to determine which indexes are used for a SELECT. See Section 7.2.1, “Optimizing Queries with EXPLAIN”, and Section 7.4.5, “How MySQL Uses Indexes”.

Some general tips for speeding up queries on MyISAM tables:

This section discusses optimizations that can be made for processing WHERE clauses. The examples use SELECT statements, but the same optimizations apply for WHERE clauses in DELETE and UPDATE statements.

Work on the MySQL optimizer is ongoing, so this section is incomplete. MySQL performs a great many optimizations, not all of which are documented here.

Some of the optimizations performed by MySQL follow:

Some examples of queries that are very fast:

SELECT COUNT(*) FROM tbl_name;

SELECT MIN(key_part1),MAX(key_part1) FROM tbl_name;

SELECT MAX(key_part2) FROM tbl_name
  WHERE key_part1=constant;

SELECT ... FROM tbl_name
  ORDER BY key_part1,key_part2,... LIMIT 10;

SELECT ... FROM tbl_name
  ORDER BY key_part1 DESC, key_part2 DESC, ... LIMIT 10;

MySQL resolves the following queries using only the index tree, assuming that the indexed columns are numeric:

SELECT key_part1,key_part2 FROM tbl_name WHERE key_part1=val;

SELECT COUNT(*) FROM tbl_name
  WHERE key_part1=val1 AND key_part2=val2;

SELECT key_part2 FROM tbl_name GROUP BY key_part1;

The following queries use indexing to retrieve the rows in sorted order without a separate sorting pass:

SELECT ... FROM tbl_name
  ORDER BY key_part1,key_part2,... ;

SELECT ... FROM tbl_name
  ORDER BY key_part1 DESC, key_part2 DESC, ... ;

The range access method uses a single index to retrieve a subset of table rows that are contained within one or several index value intervals. It can be used for a single-part or multiple-part index. The following sections give a detailed description of how intervals are extracted from the WHERE clause.

SELECT * FROM t1
  WHERE key_col > 1 
  AND key_col < 10;

SELECT * FROM t1 
  WHERE key_col = 1 
  OR key_col IN (15,18,20);

SELECT * FROM t1 
  WHERE key_col LIKE 'ab%' 
  OR key_col BETWEEN 'bar' AND 'foo';

SELECT * FROM t1 WHERE
  (key1 < 'abc' AND (key1 LIKE 'abcde%' OR key1 LIKE '%b')) OR
  (key1 < 'bar' AND nonkey = 4) OR
  (key1 < 'uux' AND key1 > 'z');

key_part1  key_part2  key_part3
  NULL       1          'abc'
  NULL       1          'xyz'
  NULL       2          'foo'
   1         1          'abc'
   1         1          'xyz'
   1         2          'abc'
   2         1          'aaa'

(1,-inf,-inf) <= (key_part1,key_part2,key_part3) < (1,+inf,+inf)

The Index Merge method is used to retrieve rows with several range scans and to merge their results into one. The merge can produce unions, intersections, or unions-of-intersections of its underlying scans. This access method merges index scans from a single table; it does not merge scans across multiple tables.

In EXPLAIN output, the Index Merge method appears as index_merge in the type column. In this case, the key column contains a list of indexes used, and key_len contains a list of the longest key parts for those indexes.

Examples:

SELECT * FROM tbl_name WHERE key1 = 10 OR key2 = 20;

SELECT * FROM tbl_name
  WHERE (key1 = 10 OR key2 = 20) AND non_key=30;

SELECT * FROM t1, t2
  WHERE (t1.key1 IN (1,2) OR t1.key2 LIKE 'value%')
  AND t2.key1=t1.some_col;

SELECT * FROM t1, t2
  WHERE t1.key1=1
  AND (t2.key1=t1.some_col OR t2.key2=t1.some_col2);

The Index Merge method has several access algorithms (seen in the Extra field of EXPLAIN output):

The following sections describe these methods in greater detail.

The choice between different possible variants of the Index Merge access method and other access methods is based on cost estimates of various available options.

SELECT * FROM innodb_table WHERE primary_key < 10 AND key_col1=20;

SELECT * FROM tbl_name
  WHERE (key1_part1=1 AND key1_part2=2) AND key2=2;

SELECT COUNT(*) FROM t1 WHERE key1=1 AND key2=1;

SELECT * FROM t1 WHERE key1=1 OR key2=2 OR key3=3;

SELECT * FROM innodb_table WHERE (key1=1 AND key2=2) OR
  (key3='foo' AND key4='bar') AND key5=5;

SELECT * FROM tbl_name WHERE key_col1 < 10 OR key_col2 < 20;

SELECT * FROM tbl_name
  WHERE (key_col1 > 10 OR key_col2 = 20) AND nonkey_col=30;

This optimization improves the efficiency of a direct comparison between a non-indexed column and a constant. In such cases, the condition is “pushed down” to the storage engine for evaluation. In MySQL 5.0, this optimzation can be used only by the NDBCLUSTER storage engine, but we intend to implement it for additional storage engines in future versions of MySQL.

For MySQL Cluster this optimization can eliminate the need to send non-matching rows over the network between the cluster's data nodes and the MySQL Server that issued the query, and can speed up queries where it is used by a factor of 5 to 10 times over cases where condition pushdown could be but is not used.

Suppose that a MySQL Cluster table is defined as follows:

CREATE TABLE t1 (
    a INT, 
    b INT, 
    KEY(a)
) ENGINE=NDBCLUSTER;

Condition pushdown can be used with a query against this table such as the query shown here:

SELECT a,b FROM t1 WHERE b = 10;

This can be seen in the output of EXPLAIN SELECT:

mysql> EXPLAIN SELECT a,b FROM t1 WHERE b = 10\G
*************************** 1. row ***************************
           id: 1
  select_type: SIMPLE
        table: t1
         type: ALL
possible_keys: NULL
          key: NULL
      key_len: NULL
          ref: NULL
         rows: 10
        Extra: Using where with pushed condition

However, condition pushdown cannot be used with either of these two queries:

SELECT a,b FROM t1 WHERE a = 10;
SELECT a,b FROM t1 WHERE b + 1 = 10;

With regard to the first of these two queries, condition pushdown is not applicable because an index exists on column a. (An index access method would be more efficient and so would be chosen in preference to condition pushdown.) In the case of the second query, condition pushdown cannot be employed because the comparison involving the non-indexed column b is indirect. (However, condition pushdown could be applied if you were to reduce b + 1 = 10 to b = 9 in the WHERE clause.)

Condition pushdown may also be employed when an indexed column is compared with a constant using a > or < operator:

mysql> EXPLAIN SELECT a,b FROM t1 WHERE a<2\G
*************************** 1. row ***************************
           id: 1
  select_type: SIMPLE
        table: t1
         type: range
possible_keys: a
          key: a
      key_len: 5
          ref: NULL
         rows: 2
        Extra: Using where with pushed condition

Other comparisons which are supported for condition pushdown include the following:

In all of the cases in the preceding list, it is possible for the condition to be converted into the form of one or more direct comparisons between a column and a constant.

Condition pushdown capability is not used by default. To enable it, you can start mysqld with the --engine-condition-pushdown option, or you can execute either of the following statements at runtime:

SET engine_condition_pushdown=ON;

SET engine_condition_pushdown=1;

Limitations.  Condition pushdown is subject to the following limitations:

MySQL can perform the same optimization on col_name IS NULL that it can use for col_name = constant_value. For example, MySQL can use indexes and ranges to search for NULL with IS NULL.

Examples:

SELECT * FROM tbl_name WHERE key_col IS NULL;

SELECT * FROM tbl_name WHERE key_col <=> NULL;

SELECT * FROM tbl_name
  WHERE key_col=const1 OR key_col=const2 OR key_col IS NULL;

If a WHERE clause includes a col_name IS NULL condition for a column that is declared as NOT NULL, that expression is optimized away. This optimization does not occur in cases when the column might produce NULL anyway; for example, if it comes from a table on the right side of a LEFT JOIN.

MySQL can also optimize the combination col_name = expr OR col_name IS NULL, a form that is common in resolved subqueries. EXPLAIN shows ref_or_null when this optimization is used.

This optimization can handle one IS NULL for any key part.

Some examples of queries that are optimized, assuming that there is an index on columns a and b of table t2:

SELECT * FROM t1 WHERE t1.a=expr OR t1.a IS NULL;

SELECT * FROM t1, t2 WHERE t1.a=t2.a OR t2.a IS NULL;

SELECT * FROM t1, t2
  WHERE (t1.a=t2.a OR t2.a IS NULL) AND t2.b=t1.b;

SELECT * FROM t1, t2
  WHERE t1.a=t2.a AND (t2.b=t1.b OR t2.b IS NULL);

SELECT * FROM t1, t2
  WHERE (t1.a=t2.a AND t2.a IS NULL AND ...)
  OR (t1.a=t2.a AND t2.a IS NULL AND ...);

ref_or_null works by first doing a read on the reference key, and then a separate search for rows with a NULL key value.

Note that the optimization can handle only one IS NULL level. In the following query, MySQL uses key lookups only on the expression (t1.a=t2.a AND t2.a IS NULL) and is not able to use the key part on b:

SELECT * FROM t1, t2
  WHERE (t1.a=t2.a AND t2.a IS NULL)
  OR (t1.b=t2.b AND t2.b IS NULL);

MySQL implements an A LEFT JOIN B join_condition as follows:

The implementation of RIGHT JOIN is analogous to that of LEFT JOIN with the roles of the tables reversed.

The join optimizer calculates the order in which tables should be joined. The table read order forced by LEFT JOIN or STRAIGHT_JOIN helps the join optimizer do its work much more quickly, because there are fewer table permutations to check. Note that this means that if you do a query of the following type, MySQL does a full scan on b because the LEFT JOIN forces it to be read before d:

SELECT *
  FROM a JOIN b LEFT JOIN c ON (c.key=a.key) LEFT JOIN d ON (d.key=a.key)
  WHERE b.key=d.key;

The fix in this case is reverse the order in which a and b are listed in the FROM clause:

SELECT *
  FROM b JOIN a LEFT JOIN c ON (c.key=a.key) LEFT JOIN d ON (d.key=a.key)
  WHERE b.key=d.key;

For a LEFT JOIN, if the WHERE condition is always false for the generated NULL row, the LEFT JOIN is changed to a normal join. For example, the WHERE clause would be false in the following query if t2.column1 were NULL:

SELECT * FROM t1 LEFT JOIN t2 ON (column1) WHERE t2.column2=5;

Therefore, it is safe to convert the query to a normal join:

SELECT * FROM t1, t2 WHERE t2.column2=5 AND t1.column1=t2.column1;

This can be made faster because MySQL can use table t2 before table t1 if doing so would result in a better query plan. To provide a hint about the table join order, use STRAIGHT_JOIN. (See Section 12.2.7, “SELECT Syntax”.)

As of MySQL 5.0.1, the syntax for expressing joins allows nested joins. The following discussion refers to the join syntax described in Section 12.2.7.1, “JOIN Syntax”.

The syntax of table_factor is extended in comparison with the SQL Standard. The latter accepts only table_reference, not a list of them inside a pair of parentheses. This is a conservative extension if we consider each comma in a list of table_reference items as equivalent to an inner join. For example:

SELECT * FROM t1 LEFT JOIN (t2, t3, t4)
                 ON (t2.a=t1.a AND t3.b=t1.b AND t4.c=t1.c)

is equivalent to:

SELECT * FROM t1 LEFT JOIN (t2 CROSS JOIN t3 CROSS JOIN t4)
                 ON (t2.a=t1.a AND t3.b=t1.b AND t4.c=t1.c)

In MySQL, CROSS JOIN is a syntactic equivalent to INNER JOIN (they can replace each other). In standard SQL, they are not equivalent. INNER JOIN is used with an ON clause; CROSS JOIN is used otherwise.

In versions of MySQL prior to 5.0.1, parentheses in table_references were just omitted and all join operations were grouped to the left. In general, parentheses can be ignored in join expressions containing only inner join operations.

After removing parentheses and grouping operations to the left, the join expression:

t1 LEFT JOIN (t2 LEFT JOIN t3 ON t2.b=t3.b OR t2.b IS NULL)
   ON t1.a=t2.a

transforms into the expression:

(t1 LEFT JOIN t2 ON t1.a=t2.a) LEFT JOIN t3
    ON t2.b=t3.b OR t2.b IS NULL

Yet, the two expressions are not equivalent. To see this, suppose that the tables t1, t2, and t3 have the following state:

In this case, the first expression returns a result set including the rows (1,1,101,101), (2,NULL,NULL,NULL), whereas the second expression returns the rows (1,1,101,101), (2,NULL,NULL,101):

mysql> SELECT *
    -> FROM t1
    ->      LEFT JOIN
    ->      (t2 LEFT JOIN t3 ON t2.b=t3.b OR t2.b IS NULL)
    ->      ON t1.a=t2.a;
+------+------+------+------+
| a    | a    | b    | b    |
+------+------+------+------+
|    1 |    1 |  101 |  101 |
|    2 | NULL | NULL | NULL |
+------+------+------+------+

mysql> SELECT *
    -> FROM (t1 LEFT JOIN t2 ON t1.a=t2.a)
    ->      LEFT JOIN t3
    ->      ON t2.b=t3.b OR t2.b IS NULL;
+------+------+------+------+
| a    | a    | b    | b    |
+------+------+------+------+
|    1 |    1 |  101 |  101 |
|    2 | NULL | NULL |  101 |
+------+------+------+------+

In the following example, an outer join operation is used together with an inner join operation:

t1 LEFT JOIN (t2, t3) ON t1.a=t2.a

That expression cannot be transformed into the following expression:

t1 LEFT JOIN t2 ON t1.a=t2.a, t3.

For the given table states, the two expressions return different sets of rows:

mysql> SELECT *
    -> FROM t1 LEFT JOIN (t2, t3) ON t1.a=t2.a;
+------+------+------+------+
| a    | a    | b    | b    |
+------+------+------+------+
|    1 |    1 |  101 |  101 |
|    2 | NULL | NULL | NULL |
+------+------+------+------+

mysql> SELECT *
    -> FROM t1 LEFT JOIN t2 ON t1.a=t2.a, t3;
+------+------+------+------+
| a    | a    | b    | b    |
+------+------+------+------+
|    1 |    1 |  101 |  101 |
|    2 | NULL | NULL |  101 |
+------+------+------+------+

Therefore, if we omit parentheses in a join expression with outer join operators, we might change the result set for the original expression.

More exactly, we cannot ignore parentheses in the right operand of the left outer join operation and in the left operand of a right join operation. In other words, we cannot ignore parentheses for the inner table expressions of outer join operations. Parentheses for the other operand (operand for the outer table) can be ignored.

The following expression:

(t1,t2) LEFT JOIN t3 ON P(t2.b,t3.b)

is equivalent to this expression:

t1, t2 LEFT JOIN t3 ON P(t2.b,t3.b)

for any tables t1,t2,t3 and any condition P over attributes t2.b and t3.b.

Whenever the order of execution of the join operations in a join expression (join_table) is not from left to right, we talk about nested joins. Consider the following queries:

SELECT * FROM t1 LEFT JOIN (t2 LEFT JOIN t3 ON t2.b=t3.b) ON t1.a=t2.a
  WHERE t1.a > 1

SELECT * FROM t1 LEFT JOIN (t2, t3) ON t1.a=t2.a
  WHERE (t2.b=t3.b OR t2.b IS NULL) AND t1.a > 1

Those queries are considered to contain these nested joins:

t2 LEFT JOIN t3 ON t2.b=t3.b
t2, t3

The nested join is formed in the first query with a left join operation, whereas in the second query it is formed with an inner join operation.

In the first query, the parentheses can be omitted: The grammatical structure of the join expression will dictate the same order of execution for join operations. For the second query, the parentheses cannot be omitted, although the join expression here can be interpreted unambiguously without them. (In our extended syntax the parentheses in (t2, t3) of the second query are required, although theoretically the query could be parsed without them: We still would have unambiguous syntactical structure for the query because LEFT JOIN and ON would play the role of the left and right delimiters for the expression (t2,t3).)

The preceding examples demonstrate these points:

Queries with nested outer joins are executed in the same pipeline manner as queries with inner joins. More exactly, a variation of the nested-loop join algorithm is exploited. Recall by what algorithmic schema the nested-loop join executes a query. Suppose that we have a join query over 3 tables T1,T2,T3 of the form:

SELECT * FROM T1 INNER JOIN T2 ON P1(T1,T2)
                 INNER JOIN T3 ON P2(T2,T3)
  WHERE P(T1,T2,T3).

Here, P1(T1,T2) and P2(T3,T3) are some join conditions (on expressions), whereas P(t1,t2,t3) is a condition over columns of tables T1,T2,T3.

The nested-loop join algorithm would execute this query in the following manner:

FOR each row t1 in T1 {
  FOR each row t2 in T2 such that P1(t1,t2) {
    FOR each row t3 in T3 such that P2(t2,t3) {
      IF P(t1,t2,t3) {
         t:=t1||t2||t3; OUTPUT t;
      }
    }
  }
}

The notation t1||t2||t3 means “a row constructed by concatenating the columns of rows t1, t2, and t3.” In some of the following examples, NULL where a row name appears means that NULL is used for each column of that row. For example, t1||t2||NULL means “a row constructed by concatenating the columns of rows t1 and t2, and NULL for each column of t3.”

Now let's consider a query with nested outer joins:

SELECT * FROM T1 LEFT JOIN
              (T2 LEFT JOIN T3 ON P2(T2,T3))
              ON P1(T1,T2)
  WHERE P(T1,T2,T3).

For this query, we modify the nested-loop pattern to get:

FOR each row t1 in T1 {
  BOOL f1:=FALSE;
  FOR each row t2 in T2 such that P1(t1,t2) {
    BOOL f2:=FALSE;
    FOR each row t3 in T3 such that P2(t2,t3) {
      IF P(t1,t2,t3) {
        t:=t1||t2||t3; OUTPUT t;
      }
      f2=TRUE;
      f1=TRUE;
    }
    IF (!f2) {
      IF P(t1,t2,NULL) {
        t:=t1||t2||NULL; OUTPUT t;
      }
      f1=TRUE;
    }
  }
  IF (!f1) {
    IF P(t1,NULL,NULL) {
      t:=t1||NULL||NULL; OUTPUT t;
    }
  }
}

In general, for any nested loop for the first inner table in an outer join operation, a flag is introduced that is turned off before the loop and is checked after the loop. The flag is turned on when for the current row from the outer table a match from the table representing the inner operand is found. If at the end of the loop cycle the flag is still off, no match has been found for the current row of the outer table. In this case, the row is complemented by NULL values for the columns of the inner tables. The result row is passed to the final check for the output or into the next nested loop, but only if the row satisfies the join condition of all embedded outer joins.

In our example, the outer join table expressed by the following expression is embedded:

(T2 LEFT JOIN T3 ON P2(T2,T3))

Note that for the query with inner joins, the optimizer could choose a different order of nested loops, such as this one:

FOR each row t3 in T3 {
  FOR each row t2 in T2 such that P2(t2,t3) {
    FOR each row t1 in T1 such that P1(t1,t2) {
      IF P(t1,t2,t3) {
         t:=t1||t2||t3; OUTPUT t;
      }
    }
  }
}

For the queries with outer joins, the optimizer can choose only such an order where loops for outer tables precede loops for inner tables. Thus, for our query with outer joins, only one nesting order is possible. For the following query, the optimizer will evaluate two different nestings:

SELECT * T1 LEFT JOIN (T2,T3) ON P1(T1,T2) AND P2(T1,T3)
  WHERE P(T1,T2,T3)

The nestings are these:

FOR each row t1 in T1 {
  BOOL f1:=FALSE;
  FOR each row t2 in T2 such that P1(t1,t2) {
    FOR each row t3 in T3 such that P2(t1,t3) {
      IF P(t1,t2,t3) {
        t:=t1||t2||t3; OUTPUT t;
      }
      f1:=TRUE
    }
  }
  IF (!f1) {
    IF P(t1,NULL,NULL) {
      t:=t1||NULL||NULL; OUTPUT t;
    }
  }
}

and:

FOR each row t1 in T1 {
  BOOL f1:=FALSE;
  FOR each row t3 in T3 such that P2(t1,t3) {
    FOR each row t2 in T2 such that P1(t1,t2) {
      IF P(t1,t2,t3) {
        t:=t1||t2||t3; OUTPUT t;
      }
      f1:=TRUE
    }
  }
  IF (!f1) {
    IF P(t1,NULL,NULL) {
      t:=t1||NULL||NULL; OUTPUT t;
    }
  }
}

In both nestings, T1 must be processed in the outer loop because it is used in an outer join. T2 and T3 are used in an inner join, so that join must be processed in the inner loop. However, because the join is an inner join, T2 and T3 can be processed in either order.

When discussing the nested-loop algorithm for inner joins, we omitted some details whose impact on the performance of query execution may be huge. We did not mention so-called “pushed-down” conditions. Suppose that our WHERE condition P(T1,T2,T3) can be represented by a conjunctive formula:

P(T1,T2,T2) = C1(T1) AND C2(T2) AND C3(T3).

In this case, MySQL actually uses the following nested-loop schema for the execution of the query with inner joins:

FOR each row t1 in T1 such that C1(t1) {
  FOR each row t2 in T2 such that P1(t1,t2) AND C2(t2)  {
    FOR each row t3 in T3 such that P2(t2,t3) AND C3(t3) {
      IF P(t1,t2,t3) {
         t:=t1||t2||t3; OUTPUT t;
      }
    }
  }
}

You see that each of the conjuncts C1(T1), C2(T2), C3(T3) are pushed out of the most inner loop to the most outer loop where it can be evaluated. If C1(T1) is a very restrictive condition, this condition pushdown may greatly reduce the number of rows from table T1 passed to the inner loops. As a result, the execution time for the query may improve immensely.

For a query with outer joins, the WHERE condition is to be checked only after it has been found that the current row from the outer table has a match in the inner tables. Thus, the optimization of pushing conditions out of the inner nested loops cannot be applied directly to queries with outer joins. Here we have to introduce conditional pushed-down predicates guarded by the flags that are turned on when a match has been encountered.

For our example with outer joins with:

P(T1,T2,T3)=C1(T1) AND C(T2) AND C3(T3)

the nested-loop schema using guarded pushed-down conditions looks like this:

FOR each row t1 in T1 such that C1(t1) {
  BOOL f1:=FALSE;
  FOR each row t2 in T2
      such that P1(t1,t2) AND (f1?C2(t2):TRUE) {
    BOOL f2:=FALSE;
    FOR each row t3 in T3
        such that P2(t2,t3) AND (f1&&f2?C3(t3):TRUE) {
      IF (f1&&f2?TRUE:(C2(t2) AND C3(t3))) {
        t:=t1||t2||t3; OUTPUT t;
      }
      f2=TRUE;
      f1=TRUE;
    }
    IF (!f2) {
      IF (f1?TRUE:C2(t2) && P(t1,t2,NULL)) {
        t:=t1||t2||NULL; OUTPUT t;
      }
      f1=TRUE;
    }
  }
  IF (!f1 && P(t1,NULL,NULL)) {
      t:=t1||NULL||NULL; OUTPUT t;
  }
}

In general, pushed-down predicates can be extracted from join conditions such as P1(T1,T2) and P(T2,T3). In this case, a pushed-down predicate is guarded also by a flag that prevents checking the predicate for the NULL-complemented row generated by the corresponding outer join operation.

Note that access by key from one inner table to another in the same nested join is prohibited if it is induced by a predicate from the WHERE condition. (We could use conditional key access in this case, but this technique is not employed yet in MySQL 5.0.)

Table expressions in the FROM clause of a query are simplified in many cases.

At the parser stage, queries with right outer joins operations are converted to equivalent queries containing only left join operations. In the general case, the conversion is performed according to the following rule:

(T1, ...) RIGHT JOIN (T2,...) ON P(T1,...,T2,...) =
(T2, ...) LEFT JOIN (T1,...) ON P(T1,...,T2,...)

All inner join expressions of the form T1 INNER JOIN T2 ON P(T1,T2) are replaced by the list T1,T2, P(T1,T2) being joined as a conjunct to the WHERE condition (or to the join condition of the embedding join, if there is any).

When the optimizer evaluates plans for join queries with outer join operation, it takes into consideration only the plans where, for each such operation, the outer tables are accessed before the inner tables. The optimizer options are limited because only such plans enables us to execute queries with outer joins operations by the nested loop schema.

Suppose that we have a query of the form:

SELECT * T1 LEFT JOIN T2 ON P1(T1,T2)
  WHERE P(T1,T2) AND R(T2)

with R(T2) narrowing greatly the number of matching rows from table T2. If we executed the query as it is, the optimizer would have no other choice besides to access table T1 before table T2 that may lead to a very inefficient execution plan.

Fortunately, MySQL converts such a query into a query without an outer join operation if the WHERE condition is null-rejected. A condition is called null-rejected for an outer join operation if it evaluates to FALSE or to UNKNOWN for any NULL-complemented row built for the operation.

Thus, for this outer join:

T1 LEFT JOIN T2 ON T1.A=T2.A

Conditions such as these are null-rejected:

T2.B IS NOT NULL,
T2.B > 3,
T2.C <= T1.C,
T2.B < 2 OR T2.C > 1

Conditions such as these are not null-rejected:

T2.B IS NULL,
T1.B < 3 OR T2.B IS NOT NULL,
T1.B < 3 OR T2.B > 3

The general rules for checking whether a condition is null-rejected for an outer join operation are simple. A condition is null-rejected in the following cases:

A condition can be null-rejected for one outer join operation in a query and not null-rejected for another. In the query:

SELECT * FROM T1 LEFT JOIN T2 ON T2.A=T1.A
                 LEFT JOIN T3 ON T3.B=T1.B
  WHERE T3.C > 0

the WHERE condition is null-rejected for the second outer join operation but is not null-rejected for the first one.

If the WHERE condition is null-rejected for an outer join operation in a query, the outer join operation is replaced by an inner join operation.

For example, the preceding query is replaced with the query:

SELECT * FROM T1 LEFT JOIN T2 ON T2.A=T1.A
                 INNER JOIN T3 ON T3.B=T1.B
  WHERE T3.C > 0

For the original query, the optimizer would evaluate plans compatible with only one access order T1,T2,T3. For the replacing query, it additionally considers the access sequence T3,T1,T2.

A conversion of one outer join operation may trigger a conversion of another. Thus, the query:

SELECT * FROM T1 LEFT JOIN T2 ON T2.A=T1.A
                 LEFT JOIN T3 ON T3.B=T2.B
  WHERE T3.C > 0

will be first converted to the query:

SELECT * FROM T1 LEFT JOIN T2 ON T2.A=T1.A
                 INNER JOIN T3 ON T3.B=T2.B
  WHERE T3.C > 0

which is equivalent to the query:

SELECT * FROM (T1 LEFT JOIN T2 ON T2.A=T1.A), T3
  WHERE T3.C > 0 AND T3.B=T2.B

Now the remaining outer join operation can be replaced by an inner join, too, because the condition T3.B=T2.B is null-rejected and we get a query without outer joins at all:

SELECT * FROM (T1 INNER JOIN T2 ON T2.A=T1.A), T3
  WHERE T3.C > 0 AND T3.B=T2.B

Sometimes we succeed in replacing an embedded outer join operation, but cannot convert the embedding outer join. The following query:

SELECT * FROM T1 LEFT JOIN
              (T2 LEFT JOIN T3 ON T3.B=T2.B)
              ON T2.A=T1.A
  WHERE T3.C > 0

is converted to:

SELECT * FROM T1 LEFT JOIN
              (T2 INNER JOIN T3 ON T3.B=T2.B)
              ON T2.A=T1.A
  WHERE T3.C > 0,

That can be rewritten only to the form still containing the embedding outer join operation:

SELECT * FROM T1 LEFT JOIN
              (T2,T3)
              ON (T2.A=T1.A AND T3.B=T2.B)
  WHERE T3.C > 0.

When trying to convert an embedded outer join operation in a query, we must take into account the join condition for the embedding outer join together with the WHERE condition. In the query:

SELECT * FROM T1 LEFT JOIN
              (T2 LEFT JOIN T3 ON T3.B=T2.B)
              ON T2.A=T1.A AND T3.C=T1.C
  WHERE T3.D > 0 OR T1.D > 0

the WHERE condition is not null-rejected for the embedded outer join, but the join condition of the embedding outer join T2.A=T1.A AND T3.C=T1.C is null-rejected. So the query can be converted to:

SELECT * FROM T1 LEFT JOIN
              (T2, T3)
              ON T2.A=T1.A AND T3.C=T1.C AND T3.B=T2.B
  WHERE T3.D > 0 OR T1.D > 0

The algorithm that converts outer join operations into inner joins was implemented in full measure, as it has been described here, in MySQL 5.0.1. MySQL 4.1 performs only some simple conversions.

In some cases, MySQL can use an index to satisfy an ORDER BY clause without doing any extra sorting.

The index can also be used even if the ORDER BY does not match the index exactly, as long as all of the unused portions of the index and all the extra ORDER BY columns are constants in the WHERE clause. The following queries use the index to resolve the ORDER BY part:

SELECT * FROM t1 
  ORDER BY key_part1,key_part2,... ;
    
SELECT * FROM t1 
  WHERE key_part1=constant 
  ORDER BY key_part2;
    
SELECT * FROM t1 
  ORDER BY key_part1 DESC, key_part2 DESC;
    
SELECT * FROM t1
  WHERE key_part1=1 
  ORDER BY key_part1 DESC, key_part2 DESC;

In some cases, MySQL cannot use indexes to resolve the ORDER BY, although it still uses indexes to find the rows that match the WHERE clause. These cases include the following:

Availability of an index for sorting may be affected by the use of column aliases. Suppose that the column t1.a is indexed. In this statement, the name of the column in the select list is a. It refers to t1.a, so for the reference to a in the ORDER BY, the index can be used:

SELECT a FROM t1 ORDER BY a;

In this statement, the name of the column in the select list is also a, but it is the alias name. It refers to ABS(a), so for the reference to a in the ORDER BY, the index cannot be used:

SELECT ABS(a) AS a FROM t1 ORDER BY a;

In the following statement, the ORDER BY refers to a name that is not the name of a column in the select list. But there is a column in t1 named a, so the ORDER BY uses that, and the index can be used. (The resulting sort order may be completely different from the order for ABS(a), of course.)

SELECT ABS(a) AS b FROM t1 ORDER BY a;

By default, MySQL sorts all GROUP BY col1, col2, ... queries as if you specified ORDER BY col1, col2, ... in the query as well. If you include an ORDER BY clause explicitly that contains the same column list, MySQL optimizes it away without any speed penalty, although the sorting still occurs. If a query includes GROUP BY but you want to avoid the overhead of sorting the result, you can suppress sorting by specifying ORDER BY NULL. For example:

INSERT INTO foo
SELECT a, COUNT(*) FROM bar GROUP BY a ORDER BY NULL;

With EXPLAIN SELECT ... ORDER BY, you can check whether MySQL can use indexes to resolve the query. It cannot if you see Using filesort in the Extra column. See Section 7.2.1, “Optimizing Queries with EXPLAIN”.

MySQL has two filesort algorithms for sorting and retrieving results. The original method uses only the ORDER BY columns. The modified method uses not just the ORDER BY columns, but all the columns used in the query.

The optimizer selects which filesort algorithm to use. It normally uses the modified algorithm except when BLOB or TEXT columns are involved, in which case it uses the original algorithm.

The original filesort algorithm works as follows:

One problem with this approach is that it reads rows twice: One time when evaluating the WHERE clause, and again after sorting the pair values. And even if the rows were accessed successively the first time (for example, if a table scan is done), the second time they are accessed randomly. (The sort keys are ordered, but the row positions are not.)

The modified filesort algorithm incorporates an optimization such that it records not only the sort key value and row position, but also the columns required for the query. This avoids reading the rows twice. The modified filesort algorithm works like this:

Using the modified filesort algorithm, the tuples are longer than the pairs used in the original method, and fewer of them fit in the sort buffer (the size of which is given by sort_buffer_size). As a result, it is possible for the extra I/O to make the modified approach slower, not faster. To avoid a slowdown, the optimization is used only if the total size of the extra columns in the sort tuple does not exceed the value of the max_length_for_sort_data system variable. (A symptom of setting the value of this variable too high is that you should see high disk activity and low CPU activity.)

For slow queries for which filesort is not used, you might try lowering max_length_for_sort_data to a value that is appropriate to trigger a filesort.

If you want to increase ORDER BY speed, check whether you can get MySQL to use indexes rather than an extra sorting phase. If this is not possible, you can try the following strategies:

The most general way to satisfy a GROUP BY clause is to scan the whole table and create a new temporary table where all rows from each group are consecutive, and then use this temporary table to discover groups and apply aggregate functions (if any). In some cases, MySQL is able to do much better than that and to avoid creation of temporary tables by using index access.

The most important preconditions for using indexes for GROUP BY are that all GROUP BY columns reference attributes from the same index, and that the index stores its keys in order (for example, this is a BTREE index and not a HASH index). Whether use of temporary tables can be replaced by index access also depends on which parts of an index are used in a query, the conditions specified for these parts, and the selected aggregate functions.

In MySQL, GROUP BY is used for sorting, so the server may also apply ORDER BY optimizations to grouping. See Section 7.2.12, “ORDER BY Optimization”.

There are two ways to execute a GROUP BY query via index access, as detailed in the following sections. In the first method, the grouping operation is applied together with all range predicates (if any). The second method first performs a range scan, and then groups the resulting tuples.

SELECT c1, c2 FROM t1 GROUP BY c1, c2;
SELECT DISTINCT c1, c2 FROM t1;
SELECT c1, MIN(c2) FROM t1 GROUP BY c1;
SELECT c1, c2 FROM t1 WHERE c1 < const GROUP BY c1, c2;
SELECT MAX(c3), MIN(c3), c1, c2 FROM t1 WHERE c2 > const GROUP BY c1, c2;
SELECT c2 FROM t1 WHERE c1 < const GROUP BY c1, c2;
SELECT c1, c2 FROM t1 WHERE c3 = const GROUP BY c1, c2;

DISTINCT combined with ORDER BY needs a temporary table in many cases.

Because DISTINCT may use GROUP BY, you should be aware of how MySQL works with columns in ORDER BY or HAVING clauses that are not part of the selected columns. See Section 11.11.3, “GROUP BY and HAVING with Hidden Fields”.

In most cases, a DISTINCT clause can be considered as a special case of GROUP BY. For example, the following two queries are equivalent:

SELECT DISTINCT c1, c2, c3 FROM t1
WHERE c1 > const;

SELECT c1, c2, c3 FROM t1
WHERE c1 > const GROUP BY c1, c2, c3;

Due to this equivalence, the optimizations applicable to GROUP BY queries can be also applied to queries with a DISTINCT clause. Thus, for more details on the optimization possibilities for DISTINCT queries, see Section 7.2.13, “GROUP BY Optimization”.

When combining LIMIT row_count with DISTINCT, MySQL stops as soon as it finds row_count unique rows.

If you do not use columns from all tables named in a query, MySQL stops scanning any unused tables as soon as it finds the first match. In the following case, assuming that t1 is used before t2 (which you can check with EXPLAIN), MySQL stops reading from t2 (for any particular row in t1) when it finds the first row in t2:

SELECT DISTINCT t1.a FROM t1, t2 where t1.a=t2.a;

Certain optimizations are applicable to comparisons that use the IN operator to test subquery results (or that use =ANY, which is equivalent). This section discusses these optimizations, particularly with regard to the challenges that NULL values present. Suggestions on what you can do to help the optimizer are given at the end of the discussion.

Consider the following subquery comparison:

outer_expr IN (SELECT inner_expr FROM ... WHERE subquery_where)

MySQL evaluates queries “from outside to inside.” That is, it first obtains the value of the outer expression outer_expr, and then runs the subquery and captures the rows that it produces.

A very useful optimization is to “inform” the subquery that the only rows of interest are those where the inner expression inner_expr is equal to outer_expr. This is done by pushing down an appropriate equality into the subquery's WHERE clause. That is, the comparison is converted to this:

EXISTS (SELECT 1 FROM ... WHERE subquery_where AND outer_expr=inner_expr)

After the conversion, MySQL can use the pushed-down equality to limit the number of rows that it must examine when evaluating the subquery.

More generally, a comparison of N values to a subquery that returns N-value rows is subject to the same conversion. If oe_i and ie_i represent corresponding outer and inner expression values, this subquery comparison:

(oe_1, ..., oe_N) IN
  (SELECT ie_1, ..., ie_N FROM ... WHERE subquery_where)

Becomes:

EXISTS (SELECT 1 FROM ... WHERE subquery_where
                          AND oe_1 = ie_1
                          AND ...
                          AND oe_N = ie_N)

The following discussion assumes a single pair of outer and inner expression values for simplicity.

The conversion just described has its limitations. It is valid only if we ignore possible NULL values. That is, the “pushdown” strategy works as long as both of these two conditions are true:

When either or both of those conditions do not hold, optimization is more complex.

Suppose that outer_expr is known to be a non-NULL value but the subquery does not produce a row such that outer_expr = inner_expr. Then outer_expr IN (SELECT ...) evaluates as follows:

In this situation, the approach of looking for rows with outer_expr = inner_expr is no longer valid. It is necessary to look for such rows, but if none are found, also look for rows where inner_expr is NULL. Roughly speaking, the subquery can be converted to:

EXISTS (SELECT 1 FROM ... WHERE subquery_where AND
        (outer_expr=inner_expr OR inner_expr IS NULL))

The need to evaluate the extra IS NULL condition is why MySQL has the ref_or_null access method:

mysql> EXPLAIN
    -> SELECT outer_expr IN (SELECT t2.maybe_null_key
    ->                       FROM t2, t3 WHERE ...)
    -> FROM t1;
*************************** 1. row ***************************
           id: 1
  select_type: PRIMARY
        table: t1
...
*************************** 2. row ***************************
           id: 2
  select_type: DEPENDENT SUBQUERY
        table: t2
         type: ref_or_null
possible_keys: maybe_null_key
          key: maybe_null_key
      key_len: 5
          ref: func
         rows: 2
        Extra: Using where; Using index
...

The unique_subquery and index_subquery subqery-specific access methods also have or-null variants. However, they are not visible in EXPLAIN output, so you must use EXPLAIN EXTENDED followed by SHOW WARNINGS (note the checking NULL in the warning message):

mysql> EXPLAIN EXTENDED
    -> SELECT outer_expr IN (SELECT maybe_null_key FROM t2) FROM t1\G
*************************** 1. row ***************************
           id: 1
  select_type: PRIMARY
        table: t1
...
*************************** 2. row ***************************
           id: 2
  select_type: DEPENDENT SUBQUERY
        table: t2
         type: index_subquery
possible_keys: maybe_null_key
          key: maybe_null_key
      key_len: 5
          ref: func
         rows: 2
        Extra: Using index

mysql> SHOW WARNINGS\G
*************************** 1. row ***************************
  Level: Note
   Code: 1003
Message: select (`test`.`t1`.`outer_expr`,
         (((`test`.`t1`.`outer_expr`) in t2 on
         maybe_null_key checking NULL))) AS `outer_expr IN (SELECT
         maybe_null_key FROM t2)` from `test`.`t1`

The additional OR ... IS NULL condition makes query execution slightly more complicated (and some optimizations within the subquery become inapplicable), but generally this is tolerable.

The situation is much worse when outer_expr can be NULL. According to the SQL interpretation of NULL as “unknown value,” NULL IN (SELECT inner_expr ...) should evaluate to:

For proper evaluation, it is necessary to be able to check whether the SELECT has produced any rows at all, so outer_expr = inner_expr cannot be pushed down into the subquery. This is a problem, because many real world subqueries become very slow unless the equality can be pushed down.

Essentially, there must be different ways to execute the subquery depending on the value of outer_expr. In MySQL 5.0 before 5.0.36, the optimizer chose speed over distinguishing a NULL from FALSE result, so for some queries, you might get a FALSE result rather than NULL.

As of MySQL 5.0.36, the optimizer chooses SQL compliance over speed, so it accounts for the possibility that outer_expr might be NULL.

If outer_expr is NULL, to evaluate the following expression, it is necessary to run the SELECT to determine whether it produces any rows:

NULL IN (SELECT inner_expr FROM ... WHERE subquery_where)

It is necessary to run the original SELECT here, without any pushed-down equalities of the kind mentioned earlier.

On the other hand, when outer_expr is not NULL, it is absolutely essential that this comparison:

outer_expr IN (SELECT inner_expr FROM ... WHERE subquery_where)

be converted to this expression that uses a pushed-down condition:

EXISTS (SELECT 1 FROM ... WHERE subquery_where AND outer_expr=inner_expr)

Without this conversion, subqueries will be slow. To solve the dilemma of whether to push down or not push down conditions into the subquery, the conditions are wrapped in “trigger” functions. Thus, an expression of the following form:

outer_expr IN (SELECT inner_expr FROM ... WHERE subquery_where)

is converted into:

EXISTS (SELECT 1 FROM ... WHERE subquery_where
                          AND trigcond(outer_expr=inner_expr))

More generally, if the subquery comparison is based on several pairs of outer and inner expressions, the conversion takes this comparison:

(oe_1, ..., oe_N) IN (SELECT ie_1, ..., ie_N FROM ... WHERE subquery_where)

and converts it to this expression:

EXISTS (SELECT 1 FROM ... WHERE subquery_where
                          AND trigcond(oe_1=ie_1)
                          AND ...
                          AND trigcond(oe_N=ie_N)
       )

Each trigcond(X) is a special function that evaluates to the following values:

Note that trigger functions are not triggers of the kind that you create with CREATE TRIGGER.

Equalities that are wrapped into trigcond() functions are not first class predicates for the query optimizer. Most optimizations cannot deal with predicates that may be turned on and off at query execution time, so they assume any trigcond(X) to be an unknown function and ignore it. At the moment, triggered equalities can be used by those optimizations:

When the optimizer uses a triggered condition to create some kind of index lookup-based access (as for the first two items of the preceding list), it must have a fallback strategy for the case when the condition is turned off. This fallback strategy is always the same: Do a full table scan. In EXPLAIN output, the fallback shows up as Full scan on NULL key in the Extra column:

mysql> EXPLAIN SELECT t1.col1,
    -> t1.col1 IN (SELECT t2.key1 FROM t2 WHERE t2.col2=t1.col2) FROM t1\G
*************************** 1. row ***************************
           id: 1
  select_type: PRIMARY
        table: t1
        ...
*************************** 2. row ***************************
           id: 2
  select_type: DEPENDENT SUBQUERY
        table: t2
         type: index_subquery
possible_keys: key1
          key: key1
      key_len: 5
          ref: func
         rows: 2
        Extra: Using where; Full scan on NULL key

If you run EXPLAIN EXTENDED followed by SHOW WARNINGS, you can see the triggered condition:

*************************** 1. row ***************************
  Level: Note
   Code: 1003
Message: select `test`.`t1`.`col1` AS `col1`,
         <in_optimizer>(`test`.`t1`.`col1`,
         <exists>(<index_lookup>(<cache>(`test`.`t1`.`col1`) in t2
         on key1 checking NULL
         where (`test`.`t2`.`col2` = `test`.`t1`.`col2`) having
         trigcond(<is_not_null_test>(`test`.`t2`.`key1`))))) AS
         `t1.col1 IN (select t2.key1 from t2 where t2.col2=t1.col2)`
         from `test`.`t1`

The use of triggered conditions has some performance implications. A NULL IN (SELECT ...) expression now may cause a full table scan (which is slow) when it previously did not. This is the price paid for correct results (the goal of the trigger-condition strategy was to improve compliance and not speed).

For multiple-table subqueries, execution of NULL IN (SELECT ...) will be particularly slow because the join optimizer doesn't optimize for the case where the outer expression is NULL. It assumes that subquery evaluations with NULL on the left side are very rare, even if there are statistics that indicate otherwise. On the other hand, if the outer expression might be NULL but never actually is, there is no performance penalty.

To help the query optimizer better execute your queries, use these tips:

In some cases, MySQL handles a query differently when you are using LIMIT row_count and not using HAVING:

The output from EXPLAIN shows ALL in the type column when MySQL uses a table scan to resolve a query. This usually happens under the following conditions:

MySQL Enterprise For expert advice on avoiding excessive table scans subscribe to the MySQL Enterprise Monitor. For more information, see http://www.mysql.com/products/enterprise/advisors.html.

For small tables, a table scan often is appropriate and the performance impact is negligible. For large tables, try the following techniques to avoid having the optimizer incorrectly choose a table scan:

The time required for inserting a row is determined by the following factors, where the numbers indicate approximate proportions:

This does not take into consideration the initial overhead to open tables, which is done once for each concurrently running query.

The size of the table slows down the insertion of indexes by log N, assuming B-tree indexes.

You can use the following methods to speed up inserts:

MySQL Enterprise For more advice on optimizing the performance of your server, subscribe to the MySQL Enterprise Monitor. Numerous advisors are dedicated to monitoring performance. For more information, see http://www.mysql.com/products/enterprise/advisors.html.

An update statement is optimized like a SELECT query with the additional overhead of a write. The speed of the write depends on the amount of data being updated and the number of indexes that are updated. Indexes that are not changed do not get updated.

Another way to get fast updates is to delay updates and then do many updates in a row later. Performing multiple updates together is much quicker than doing one at a time if you lock the table.

For a MyISAM table that uses dynamic row format, updating a row to a longer total length may split the row. If you do this often, it is very important to use OPTIMIZE TABLE occasionally. See Section 12.5.2.5, “OPTIMIZE TABLE Syntax”.

The time required to delete individual rows is exactly proportional to the number of indexes. To delete rows more quickly, you can increase the size of the key cache by increasing the key_buffer_size system variable. See Section 7.5.2, “Tuning Server Parameters”.

To delete all rows from a table, TRUNCATE TABLE tbl_name is faster than than DELETE FROM Truncate operations are not transaction-safe; an error occurs when attempting one in the course of an active transaction or active table lock. tbl_name. See Section 12.2.9, “TRUNCATE Syntax”.

This section lists a number of miscellaneous tips for improving query processing speed:

This section discusses internal locking; that is, locking performed within the MySQL server itself to manage contention for table contents by multiple threads. This type of locking is internal because it is performed entirely by the server and involves no other programs. External locking occurs when the server and other programs lock table files to coordinate among themselves which program can access the tables at which time. See Section 7.3.4, “External Locking”.

MySQL uses table-level locking for MyISAM and MEMORY tables, page-level locking for BDB tables, and row-level locking for InnoDB tables.

In many cases, you can make an educated guess about which locking type is best for an application, but generally it is difficult to say that a given lock type is better than another. Everything depends on the application and different parts of an application may require different lock types.

To decide whether you want to use a storage engine with row-level locking, you should look at what your application does and what mix of select and update statements it uses. For example, most Web applications perform many selects, relatively few deletes, updates based mainly on key values, and inserts into a few specific tables. The base MySQL MyISAM setup is very well tuned for this.

MySQL Enterprise The MySQL Enterprise Monitor provides expert advice on when to use table-level locking and when to use row-level locking. To subscribe see http://www.mysql.com/products/enterprise/advisors.html.

Table locking in MySQL is deadlock-free for storage engines that use table-level locking. Deadlock avoidance is managed by always requesting all needed locks at once at the beginning of a query and always locking the tables in the same order.

MySQL grants table write locks as follows:

MySQL grants table read locks as follows:

When a lock is released, the lock is made available to the requests in the write lock queue and then to the requests in the read lock queue. This means that if you have many updates for a table, SELECT statements wait until there are no more updates.

You can analyze the table lock contention on your system by checking the Table_locks_immediate and Table_locks_waited status variables, which indicate the number of times that requests for table locks could be granted immediately and the number that had to wait, respectively:

mysql> SHOW STATUS LIKE 'Table%';
+-----------------------+---------+
| Variable_name         | Value   |
+-----------------------+---------+
| Table_locks_immediate | 1151552 |
| Table_locks_waited    | 15324   |
+-----------------------+---------+

The MyISAM storage engine supports concurrent inserts to reduce contention between readers and writers for a given table: If a MyISAM table has no free blocks in the middle of the data file, rows are always inserted at the end of the data file. In this case, you can freely mix concurrent INSERT and SELECT statements for a MyISAM table without locks. That is, you can insert rows into a MyISAM table at the same time other clients are reading from it. Holes can result from rows having been deleted from or updated in the middle of the table. If there are holes, concurrent inserts are disabled but are re-enabled automatically when all holes have been filled with new data. This behavior is altered by the concurrent_insert system variable. See Section 7.3.3, “Concurrent Inserts”.

If you acquire a table lock explicitly with LOCK TABLES, you can request a READ LOCAL lock rather than a READ lock to enable other sessions to perform concurrent inserts while you have the table locked.

To perform many INSERT and SELECT operations on a table real_table when concurrent inserts are not possible, you can insert rows into a temporary table temp_table and update the real table with the rows from the temporary table periodically. This can be done with the following code:

mysql> LOCK TABLES real_table WRITE, temp_table WRITE;
mysql> INSERT INTO real_table SELECT * FROM temp_table;
mysql> DELETE FROM temp_table;
mysql> UNLOCK TABLES;

InnoDB uses row locks and BDB uses page locks. Deadlocks are possible for these storage engines because they automatically acquire locks during the processing of SQL statements, not at the start of the transaction.

Advantages of row-level locking:

Disadvantages of row-level locking:

Table locks are superior to page-level or row-level locks in the following cases:

With higher-level locks, you can more easily tune applications by supporting locks of different types, because the lock overhead is less than for row-level locks.

Options other than row-level or page-level locking:

To achieve a very high lock speed, MySQL uses table locking (instead of page, row, or column locking) for all storage engines except InnoDB, BDB, and NDBCLUSTER.

For InnoDB and BDB tables, MySQL only uses table locking if you explicitly lock the table with LOCK TABLES. For these storage engines, we recommend that you not use LOCK TABLES at all, because InnoDB uses automatic row-level locking and BDB uses page-level locking to ensure transaction isolation.

For large tables, table locking is much better than row locking for most applications, but there are some pitfalls:

Table locking is also disadvantageous under the following scenario:

The following items describe some ways to avoid or reduce contention caused by table locking:

Here are some tips concerning table locks in MySQL:

The MyISAM storage engine supports concurrent inserts to reduce contention between readers and writers for a given table: If a MyISAM table has no holes in the data file (deleted rows in the middle), inserts can be performed to add rows to the end of the table at the same time that SELECT statements are reading rows from the table.

The concurrent_insert system variable can be set to modify the concurrent-insert processing. By default, the variable is set to 1 and concurrent inserts are handled as just described. If concurrent_insert is set to 0, concurrent inserts are disabled. If the variable is set to 2, concurrent inserts at the end of the table are allowed even for tables that have deleted rows. See also the description of the concurrent_insert system variable.

Under circumstances where concurrent inserts can be used, there is seldom any need to use the DELAYED modifier for INSERT statements. See Section 12.2.4.2, “INSERT DELAYED Syntax”.

If you are using the binary log, concurrent inserts are converted to normal inserts for CREATE ... SELECT or INSERT ... SELECT statements. This is done to ensure that you can re-create an exact copy of your tables by applying the log during a backup operation. See Section 5.2.3, “The Binary Log”. In addition, for those statements a read lock is placed on the selected-from table such that inserts into that table are blocked. The effect is that concurrent inserts for that table must wait as well.

With LOAD DATA INFILE, if you specify CONCURRENT with a MyISAM table that satisfies the condition for concurrent inserts (that is, it contains no free blocks in the middle), other threads can retrieve data from the table while LOAD DATA is executing. Use of the CONCURRENT option affects the performance of LOAD DATA a bit, even if no other thread is using the table at the same time.

If you specify HIGH_PRIORITY, it overrides the effect of the --low-priority-updates option if the server was started with that option. It also causes concurrent inserts not to be used.

For LOCK TABLE, the difference between READ LOCAL and READ is that READ LOCAL allows non-conflicting INSERT statements (concurrent inserts) to execute while the lock is held. However, this cannot be used if you are going to manipulate the database using processes external to the server while you hold the lock.

External locking is the use of filesystem locking to manage contention for database tables by multiple processes. External locking is used in situations where a single process such as the MySQL server cannot be assumed to be the only process that requires access to tables. Here are some examples:

With external locking in effect, each process that requires access to a table acquires a filesystem lock for the table files before proceeding to access the table. If all necessary locks cannot be acquired, the process is blocked from accessing the table until the locks can be obtained (after the process that currently holds the locks releases them).

External locking affects server performance because the server must sometimes wait for other processes before it can access tables.

External locking is unnecessary if you run a single server to access a given data directory (which is the usual case) and if no other programs such as myisamchk need to modify tables while the server is running. If you only read tables with other programs, external locking is not required, although myisamchk might report warnings if the server changes tables while myisamchk is reading them.

With external locking disabled, to use myisamchk, you must either stop the server while myisamchk executes or else lock and flush the tables before running myisamchk. (See Section 7.5.1, “System Factors and Startup Parameter Tuning”.) To avoid this requirement, use the CHECK TABLE and REPAIR TABLE statements to check and repair MyISAM tables.

For mysqld, external locking is controlled by the value of the skip_external_locking system variable. (Before MySQL 4.0.3, this variable is named skip_locking.) When this variable is enabled, external locking is disabled, and vice versa. From MySQL 4.0 on, external locking is disabled by default. Before MySQL 4.0, external locking is enabled by default on Linux or when MySQL is configured to use MIT-pthreads.

Use of external locking can be controlled at server startup by using the --external-locking or --skip-external-locking option. (Before MySQL 4.0.3, these options are named --enable-locking and --skip-locking.)

If you do use external locking option to enable updates to MyISAM tables from many MySQL processes, you must ensure that the following conditions are satisfied:

The easiest way to satisfy these conditions is to always use --external-locking together with --delay-key-write=OFF and --query-cache-size=0. (This is not done by default because in many setups it is useful to have a mixture of the preceding options.)

MySQL keeps row data and index data in separate files. Many (almost all) other database systems mix row and index data in the same file. We believe that the MySQL choice is better for a very wide range of modern systems.

Another way to store the row data is to keep the information for each column in a separate area (examples are SDBM and Focus). This causes a performance hit for every query that accesses more than one column. Because this degenerates so quickly when more than one column is accessed, we believe that this model is not good for general-purpose databases.

The more common case is that the index and data are stored together (as in Oracle/Sybase, et al). In this case, you find the row information at the leaf page of the index. The good thing with this layout is that it, in many cases, depending on how well the index is cached, saves a disk read. The bad things with this layout are:

One of the most basic optimizations is to design your tables to take as little space on the disk as possible. This can result in huge improvements because disk reads are faster, and smaller tables normally require less main memory while their contents are being actively processed during query execution. Indexing also is a lesser resource burden if done on smaller columns.

MySQL supports many different storage engines (table types) and row formats. For each table, you can decide which storage and indexing method to use. Choosing the proper table format for your application may give you a big performance gain. See Chapter 13, Storage Engines.

You can get better performance for a table and minimize storage space by using the techniques listed here:

All MySQL data types can be indexed. Use of indexes on the relevant columns is the best way to improve the performance of SELECT operations.

The maximum number of indexes per table and the maximum index length is defined per storage engine. See Chapter 13, Storage Engines. All storage engines support at least 16 indexes per table and a total index length of at least 256 bytes. Most storage engines have higher limits.

With col_name(N) syntax in an index specification, you can create an index that uses only the first N characters of a string column. Indexing only a prefix of column values in this way can make the index file much smaller. When you index a BLOB or TEXT column, you must specify a prefix length for the index. For example:

CREATE TABLE test (blob_col BLOB, INDEX(blob_col(10)));

Prefixes can be up to 1000 bytes long (767 bytes for InnoDB tables). Note that prefix limits are measured in bytes, whereas the prefix length in CREATE TABLE statements is interpreted as number of characters. Be sure to take this into account when specifying a prefix length for a column that uses a multi-byte character set.

You can also create FULLTEXT indexes. These are used for full-text searches. Only the MyISAM storage engine supports FULLTEXT indexes and only for CHAR, VARCHAR, and TEXT columns. Indexing always takes place over the entire column and column prefix indexing is not supported. For details, see Section 11.8, “Full-Text Search Functions”.

You can also create indexes on spatial data types. Currently, only MyISAM supports R-tree indexes on spatial types. As of MySQL 5.0.16, other storage engines use B-trees for indexing spatial types (except for ARCHIVE and NDBCLUSTER, which do not support spatial type indexing).

The MEMORY storage engine uses HASH indexes by default, but also supports BTREE indexes.

MySQL can create composite indexes (that is, indexes on multiple columns). An index may consist of up to 15 columns. For certain data types, you can index a prefix of the column (see Section 7.4.3, “Column Indexes”).

A multiple-column index can be considered a sorted array containing values that are created by concatenating the values of the indexed columns.

MySQL uses multiple-column indexes in such a way that queries are fast when you specify a known quantity for the first column of the index in a WHERE clause, even if you do not specify values for the other columns.

Suppose that a table has the following specification:

CREATE TABLE test (
    id         INT NOT NULL,
    last_name  CHAR(30) NOT NULL,
    first_name CHAR(30) NOT NULL,
    PRIMARY KEY (id),
    INDEX name (last_name,first_name)
);

The name index is an index over the last_name and first_name columns. The index can be used for queries that specify values in a known range for last_name, or for both last_name and first_name. Therefore, the name index is used in the following queries:

SELECT * FROM test WHERE last_name='Widenius';

SELECT * FROM test
  WHERE last_name='Widenius' AND first_name='Michael';

SELECT * FROM test
  WHERE last_name='Widenius'
  AND (first_name='Michael' OR first_name='Monty');

SELECT * FROM test
  WHERE last_name='Widenius'
  AND first_name >='M' AND first_name < 'N';

However, the name index is not used in the following queries:

SELECT * FROM test WHERE first_name='Michael';

SELECT * FROM test
  WHERE last_name='Widenius' OR first_name='Michael';

The manner in which MySQL uses indexes to improve query performance is discussed further in Section 7.4.5, “How MySQL Uses Indexes”.

Indexes are used to find rows with specific column values quickly. Without an index, MySQL must begin with the first row and then read through the entire table to find the relevant rows. The larger the table, the more this costs. If the table has an index for the columns in question, MySQL can quickly determine the position to seek to in the middle of the data file without having to look at all the data. If a table has 1,000 rows, this is at least 100 times faster than reading sequentially. If you need to access most of the rows, it is faster to read sequentially, because this minimizes disk seeks.

Most MySQL indexes (PRIMARY KEY, UNIQUE, INDEX, and FULLTEXT) are stored in B-trees. Exceptions are that indexes on spatial data types use R-trees, and that MEMORY tables also support hash indexes.

Strings are automatically prefix- and end-space compressed. See Section 12.1.4, “CREATE INDEX Syntax”.

In general, indexes are used as described in the following discussion. Characteristics specific to hash indexes (as used in MEMORY tables) are described at the end of this section.

MySQL uses indexes for these operations:

Suppose that you issue the following SELECT statement:

mysql> SELECT * FROM tbl_name WHERE col1=val1 AND col2=val2;

If a multiple-column index exists on col1 and col2, the appropriate rows can be fetched directly. If separate single-column indexes exist on col1 and col2, the optimizer will attempt to use the Index Merge optimization (see Section 7.2.6, “Index Merge Optimization”), or attempt to find the most restrictive index by deciding which index finds fewer rows and using that index to fetch the rows.

If the table has a multiple-column index, any leftmost prefix of the index can be used by the optimizer to find rows. For example, if you have a three-column index on (col1, col2, col3), you have indexed search capabilities on (col1), (col1, col2), and (col1, col2, col3).

MySQL cannot use an index if the columns do not form a leftmost prefix of the index. Suppose that you have the SELECT statements shown here:

SELECT * FROM tbl_name WHERE col1=val1;
SELECT * FROM tbl_name WHERE col1=val1 AND col2=val2;

SELECT * FROM tbl_name WHERE col2=val2;
SELECT * FROM tbl_name WHERE col2=val2 AND col3=val3;

If an index exists on (col1, col2, col3), only the first two queries use the index. The third and fourth queries do involve indexed columns, but (col2) and (col2, col3) are not leftmost prefixes of (col1, col2, col3).

A B-tree index can be used for column comparisons in expressions that use the =, >, >=, <, <=, or BETWEEN operators. The index also can be used for LIKE comparisons if the argument to LIKE is a constant string that does not start with a wildcard character. For example, the following SELECT statements use indexes:

SELECT * FROM tbl_name WHERE key_col LIKE 'Patrick%';
SELECT * FROM tbl_name WHERE key_col LIKE 'Pat%_ck%';

In the first statement, only rows with 'Patrick' <= key_col < 'Patricl' are considered. In the second statement, only rows with 'Pat' <= key_col < 'Pau' are considered.

The following SELECT statements do not use indexes:

SELECT * FROM tbl_name WHERE key_col LIKE '%Patrick%';
SELECT * FROM tbl_name WHERE key_col LIKE other_col;

In the first statement, the LIKE value begins with a wildcard character. In the second statement, the LIKE value is not a constant.

If you use ... LIKE '%string%' and string is longer than three characters, MySQL uses the Turbo Boyer-Moore algorithm to initialize the pattern for the string and then uses this pattern to perform the search more quickly.

A search using col_name IS NULL employs indexes if col_name is indexed.

Any index that does not span all AND levels in the WHERE clause is not used to optimize the query. In other words, to be able to use an index, a prefix of the index must be used in every AND group.

The following WHERE clauses use indexes:

... WHERE index_part1=1 AND index_part2=2 AND other_column=3
    /* index = 1 OR index = 2 */
... WHERE index=1 OR A=10 AND index=2
    /* optimized like "index_part1='hello'" */
... WHERE index_part1='hello' AND index_part3=5
    /* Can use index on index1 but not on index2 or index3 */
... WHERE index1=1 AND index2=2 OR index1=3 AND index3=3;

These WHERE clauses do not use indexes:

    /* index_part1 is not used */
... WHERE index_part2=1 AND index_part3=2

    /*  Index is not used in both parts of the WHERE clause  */
... WHERE index=1 OR A=10

    /* No index spans all rows  */
... WHERE index_part1=1 OR index_part2=10

Sometimes MySQL does not use an index, even if one is available. One circumstance under which this occurs is when the optimizer estimates that using the index would require MySQL to access a very large percentage of the rows in the table. (In this case, a table scan is likely to be much faster because it requires fewer seeks.) However, if such a query uses LIMIT to retrieve only some of the rows, MySQL uses an index anyway, because it can much more quickly find the few rows to return in the result.

Hash indexes have somewhat different characteristics from those just discussed:

MySQL Enterprise Often, it is not possible to predict exactly what indexes will be required or will be most efficient — actual table usage is the best indicator. The MySQL Enterprise Monitor provides expert advice on this topic. For more information, see http://www.mysql.com/products/enterprise/advisors.html.

To minimize disk I/O, the MyISAM storage engine exploits a strategy that is used by many database management systems. It employs a cache mechanism to keep the most frequently accessed table blocks in memory:

This section first describes the basic operation of the MyISAM key cache. Then it discusses features that improve key cache performance and that enable you to better control cache operation:

To control the size of the key cache, use the key_buffer_size system variable. If this variable is set equal to zero, no key cache is used. The key cache also is not used if the key_buffer_size value is too small to allocate the minimal number of block buffers (8).

MySQL Enterprise For expert advice on identifying the optimum size for key_buffer_size, subscribe to the MySQL Enterprise Monitor. See http://www.mysql.com/products/enterprise/advisors.html.

When the key cache is not operational, index files are accessed using only the native filesystem buffering provided by the operating system. (In other words, table index blocks are accessed using the same strategy as that employed for table data blocks.)

An index block is a contiguous unit of access to the MyISAM index files. Usually the size of an index block is equal to the size of nodes of the index B-tree. (Indexes are represented on disk using a B-tree data structure. Nodes at the bottom of the tree are leaf nodes. Nodes above the leaf nodes are non-leaf nodes.)

All block buffers in a key cache structure are the same size. This size can be equal to, greater than, or less than the size of a table index block. Usually one these two values is a multiple of the other.

When data from any table index block must be accessed, the server first checks whether it is available in some block buffer of the key cache. If it is, the server accesses data in the key cache rather than on disk. That is, it reads from the cache or writes into it rather than reading from or writing to disk. Otherwise, the server chooses a cache block buffer containing a different table index block (or blocks) and replaces the data there by a copy of required table index block. As soon as the new index block is in the cache, the index data can be accessed.

If it happens that a block selected for replacement has been modified, the block is considered “dirty.” In this case, prior to being replaced, its contents are flushed to the table index from which it came.

Usually the server follows an LRU (Least Recently Used) strategy: When choosing a block for replacement, it selects the least recently used index block. To make this choice easier, the key cache module maintains a special queue (LRU chain) of all used blocks. When a block is accessed, it is placed at the end of the queue. When blocks need to be replaced, blocks at the beginning of the queue are the least recently used and become the first candidates for eviction.

mysql> CACHE INDEX t1, t2, t3 IN hot_cache;
+---------+--------------------+----------+----------+
| Table   | Op                 | Msg_type | Msg_text |
+---------+--------------------+----------+----------+
| test.t1 | assign_to_keycache | status   | OK       |
| test.t2 | assign_to_keycache | status   | OK       |
| test.t3 | assign_to_keycache | status   | OK       |
+---------+--------------------+----------+----------+

mysql> SET GLOBAL keycache1.key_buffer_size=128*1024;

mysql> SET GLOBAL keycache1.key_buffer_size=0;

mysql> SET GLOBAL key_buffer_size = 0;

mysql> SHOW VARIABLES LIKE 'key_buffer_size';
+-----------------+---------+
| Variable_name   | Value   |
+-----------------+---------+
| key_buffer_size | 8384512 |
+-----------------+---------+

key_buffer_size = 4G
hot_cache.key_buffer_size = 2G
cold_cache.key_buffer_size = 2G
init_file=/path/to/data-directory/mysqld_init.sql

CACHE INDEX db1.t1, db1.t2, db2.t3 IN hot_cache
CACHE INDEX db1.t4, db2.t5, db2.t6 IN cold_cache

mysql> LOAD INDEX INTO CACHE t1, t2 IGNORE LEAVES;
+---------+--------------+----------+----------+
| Table   | Op           | Msg_type | Msg_text |
+---------+--------------+----------+----------+
| test.t1 | preload_keys | status   | OK       |
| test.t2 | preload_keys | status   | OK       |
+---------+--------------+----------+----------+

mysql> SET GLOBAL cold_cache.key_buffer_size=4*1024*1024;

Storage engines collect statistics about tables for use by the optimizer. Table statistics are based on value groups, where a value group is a set of rows with the same key prefix value. For optimizer purposes, an important statistic is the average value group size.

MySQL uses the average value group size in the following ways:

As the average value group size for an index increases, the index is less useful for those two purposes because the average number of rows per lookup increases: For the index to be good for optimization purposes, it is best that each index value target a small number of rows in the table. When a given index value yields a large number of rows, the index is less useful and MySQL is less likely to use it.

The average value group size is related to table cardinality, which is the number of value groups. The SHOW INDEX statement displays a cardinality value based on N/S, where N is the number of rows in the table and S is the average value group size. That ratio yields an approximate number of value groups in the table.

For a join based on the <=> comparison operator, NULL is not treated differently from any other value: NULL <=> NULL, just as N <=> N for any other N.

However, for a join based on the = operator, NULL is different from non-NULL values: expr1 = expr2 is not true when expr1 or expr2 (or both) are NULL. This affects ref accesses for comparisons of the form tbl_name.key = expr: MySQL will not access the table if the current value of expr is NULL, because the comparison cannot be true.

For = comparisons, it does not matter how many NULL values are in the table. For optimization purposes, the relevant value is the average size of the non-NULL value groups. However, MySQL does not currently allow that average size to be collected or used.

For MyISAM tables, you have some control over collection of table statistics by means of the myisam_stats_method system variable. This variable has two possible values, which differ as follows:

If you tend to use many joins that use <=> rather than =, NULL values are not special in comparisons and one NULL is equal to another. In this case, nulls_equal is the appropriate statistics method.

The myisam_stats_method system variable has global and session values. Setting the global value affects MyISAM statistics collection for all MyISAM tables. Setting the session value affects statistics collection only for the current client connection. This means that you can force a table's statistics to be regenerated with a given method without affecting other clients by setting the session value of myisam_stats_method.

To regenerate table statistics, you can use any of the following methods:

Some caveats regarding the use of myisam_stats_method:

When you execute a mysqladmin status command, you should see something like this:

Uptime: 426 Running threads: 1 Questions: 11082
Reloads: 1 Open tables: 12

The Open tables value of 12 can be somewhat puzzling if you have only six tables.

MySQL is multi-threaded, so there may be many clients issuing queries for a given table simultaneously. To minimize the problem with multiple client threads having different states on the same table, the table is opened independently by each concurrent thread. This uses additional memory but normally increases performance. With MyISAM tables, one extra file descriptor is required for the data file for each client that has the table open. (By contrast, the index file descriptor is shared between all threads.)

The table_cache, max_connections, and max_tmp_tables system variables affect the maximum number of files the server keeps open. If you increase one or more of these values, you may run up against a limit imposed by your operating system on the per-process number of open file descriptors. Many operating systems allow you to increase the open-files limit, although the method varies widely from system to system. Consult your operating system documentation to determine whether it is possible to increase the limit and how to do so.

table_cache is related to max_connections. For example, for 200 concurrent running connections, you should have a table cache size of at least 200 × N, where N is the maximum number of tables per join in any of the queries which you execute. You must also reserve some extra file descriptors for temporary tables and files.

Make sure that your operating system can handle the number of open file descriptors implied by the table_cache setting. If table_cache is set too high, MySQL may run out of file descriptors and refuse connections, fail to perform queries, and be very unreliable. You also have to take into account that the MyISAM storage engine needs two file descriptors for each unique open table. You can increase the number of file descriptors available to MySQL using the --open-files-limit startup option to mysqld. See Section B.1.2.18, “'File' Not Found and Similar Errors”.

The cache of open tables is kept at a level of table_cache entries. The default value is 64; this can be changed with the --table_cache option to mysqld. Note that MySQL may temporarily open more tables than this to execute queries.

MySQL Enterprise Performance may suffer if table_cache is set too low. For expert advice on the optimum value for this variable, subscribe to the MySQL Enterprise Monitor. For more information see http://www.mysql.com/products/enterprise/advisors.html.

MySQL closes an unused table and removes it from the table cache under the following circumstances:

When the table cache fills up, the server uses the following procedure to locate a cache entry to use:

A MyISAM table is opened for each concurrent access. This means the table needs to be opened twice if two threads access the same table or if a thread accesses the table twice in the same query (for example, by joining the table to itself). Each concurrent open requires an entry in the table cache. The first open of any MyISAM table takes two file descriptors: one for the data file and one for the index file. Each additional use of the table takes only one file descriptor for the data file. The index file descriptor is shared among all threads.

If you are opening a table with the HANDLER tbl_name OPEN statement, a dedicated table object is allocated for the thread. This table object is not shared by other threads and is not closed until the thread calls HANDLER tbl_name CLOSE or the thread terminates. When this happens, the table is put back in the table cache (if the cache is not full). See Section 12.2.3, “HANDLER Syntax”.

You can determine whether your table cache is too small by checking the mysqld status variable Opened_tables, which indicates the number of table-opening operations since the server started:

mysql> SHOW GLOBAL STATUS LIKE 'Opened_tables';
+---------------+-------+
| Variable_name | Value |
+---------------+-------+
| Opened_tables | 2741  |
+---------------+-------+

If the value is very large or increases rapidly, even when you have not issued many FLUSH TABLES statements, you should increase the table cache size. See Section 5.1.3, “System Variables”, and Section 5.1.6, “Status Variables”.

If you have many MyISAM tables in the same database directory, open, close, and create operations are slow. If you execute SELECT statements on many different tables, there is a little overhead when the table cache is full, because for every table that has to be opened, another must be closed. You can reduce this overhead by increasing the number of entries allowed in the table cache.

We start with system-level factors, because some of these decisions must be made very early to achieve large performance gains. In other cases, a quick look at this section may suffice. However, it is always nice to have a sense of how much can be gained by changing factors that apply at this level.

The operating system to use is very important. To get the best use of multiple-CPU machines, you should use Solaris (because its threads implementation works well) or Linux (because the 2.4 and later kernels have good SMP support). Note that older Linux kernels have a 2GB filesize limit by default. If you have such a kernel and a need for files larger than 2GB, you should get the Large File Support (LFS) patch for the ext2 filesystem. Other filesystems such as ReiserFS and XFS do not have this 2GB limitation.

Before using MySQL in production, we advise you to test it on your intended platform.

Other tips:

You can determine the default buffer sizes used by the mysqld server using this command:

shell> mysqld --verbose --help

This command produces a list of all mysqld options and configurable system variables. The output includes the default variable values and looks something like this:

back_log                          50
binlog_cache_size                 32768
bulk_insert_buffer_size           8388608
connect_timeout                   5
date_format                       (No default value)
datetime_format                   (No default value)
default_week_format               0
delayed_insert_limit              100
delayed_insert_timeout            300
delayed_queue_size                1000
expire_logs_days                  0
flush_time                        1800
ft_max_word_len                   84
ft_min_word_len                   4
ft_query_expansion_limit          20
ft_stopword_file                  (No default value)
group_concat_max_len              1024
innodb_additional_mem_pool_size   1048576
innodb_autoextend_increment       8
innodb_buffer_pool_awe_mem_mb     0
innodb_buffer_pool_size           8388608
innodb_concurrency_tickets        500
innodb_file_io_threads            4
innodb_force_recovery             0
innodb_lock_wait_timeout          50
innodb_log_buffer_size            1048576
innodb_log_file_size              5242880
innodb_log_files_in_group         2
innodb_mirrored_log_groups        1
innodb_open_files                 300
innodb_sync_spin_loops            20
innodb_thread_concurrency         8
innodb_thread_sleep_delay         10000
interactive_timeout               28800
join_buffer_size                  131072
key_buffer_size                   8388600
key_cache_age_threshold           300
key_cache_block_size              1024
key_cache_division_limit          100
long_query_time                   10
lower_case_table_names            1
max_allowed_packet                1048576
max_binlog_cache_size             4294967295
max_binlog_size                   1073741824
max_connect_errors                10
max_connections                   100
max_delayed_threads               20
max_error_count                   64
max_heap_table_size               16777216
max_join_size                     4294967295
max_length_for_sort_data          1024
max_relay_log_size                0
max_seeks_for_key                 4294967295
max_sort_length                   1024
max_tmp_tables                    32
max_user_connections              0
max_write_lock_count              4294967295
multi_range_count                 256
myisam_block_size                 1024
myisam_data_pointer_size          6
myisam_max_sort_file_size         2147483647
myisam_repair_threads             1
myisam_sort_buffer_size           8388608
net_buffer_length                 16384
net_read_timeout                  30
net_retry_count                   10
net_write_timeout                 60
open_files_limit                  0
optimizer_prune_level             1
optimizer_search_depth            62
preload_buffer_size               32768
query_alloc_block_size            8192
query_cache_limit                 1048576
query_cache_min_res_unit          4096
query_cache_size                  0
query_cache_type                  1
query_cache_wlock_invalidate      FALSE
query_prealloc_size               8192
range_alloc_block_size            2048
read_buffer_size                  131072
read_only                         FALSE
read_rnd_buffer_size              262144
div_precision_increment           4
record_buffer                     131072
relay_log_purge                   TRUE
relay_log_space_limit             0
slave_compressed_protocol         FALSE
slave_net_timeout                 3600
slave_transaction_retries         10
slow_launch_time                  2
sort_buffer_size                  2097144
sync-binlog                       0
sync-frm                          TRUE
sync-replication                  0
sync-replication-slave-id         0
sync-replication-timeout          10
table_cache                       64
thread_cache_size                 0
thread_concurrency                10
thread_stack                      196608
time_format                       (No default value)
tmp_table_size                    33554432
transaction_alloc_block_size      8192
transaction_prealloc_size         4096
updatable_views_with_limit        1
wait_timeout                      28800

For a mysqld server that is currently running, you can see the current values of its system variables by connecting to it and issuing this statement:

mysql> SHOW VARIABLES;

You can also see some statistical and status indicators for a running server by issuing this statement:

mysql> SHOW STATUS;

System variable and status information also can be obtained using mysqladmin:

shell> mysqladmin variables
shell> mysqladmin extended-status

For a full description of all system and status variables, see Section 5.1.3, “System Variables”, and Section 5.1.6, “Status Variables”.

MySQL uses algorithms that are very scalable, so you can usually run with very little memory. However, normally you get better performance by giving MySQL more memory.

When tuning a MySQL server, the two most important variables to configure are key_buffer_size and table_cache. You should first feel confident that you have these set appropriately before trying to change any other variables.

The following examples indicate some typical variable values for different runtime configurations.

If you are performing GROUP BY or ORDER BY operations on tables that are much larger than your available memory, you should increase the value of read_rnd_buffer_size to speed up the reading of rows following sorting operations.

You can make use of the example option files included with your MySQL distribution; see Section 4.2.3.2.2, “Preconfigured Option Files”.

If you specify an option on the command line for mysqld or mysqld_safe, it remains in effect only for that invocation of the server. To use the option every time the server runs, put it in an option file.

To see the effects of a parameter change, do something like this:

shell> mysqld --key_buffer_size=32M --verbose --help

The variable values are listed near the end of the output. Make sure that the --verbose and --help options are last. Otherwise, the effect of any options listed after them on the command line are not reflected in the output.

For information on tuning the InnoDB storage engine, see Section 13.2.11, “InnoDB Performance Tuning Tips”.

MySQL Enterprise For expert advice on tuning system parameters subscribe to the MySQL Enterprise Monitor. For more information, see http://www.mysql.com/products/enterprise/advisors.html.

The task of the query optimizer is to find an optimal plan for executing an SQL query. Because the difference in performance between “good” and “bad” plans can be orders of magnitude (that is, seconds versus hours or even days), most query optimizers, including that of MySQL, perform a more or less exhaustive search for an optimal plan among all possible query evaluation plans. For join queries, the number of possible plans investigated by the MySQL optimizer grows exponentially with the number of tables referenced in a query. For small numbers of tables (typically less than 7–10) this is not a problem. However, when larger queries are submitted, the time spent in query optimization may easily become the major bottleneck in the server's performance.

MySQL 5.0.1 introduces a more flexible method for query optimization that allows the user to control how exhaustive the optimizer is in its search for an optimal query evaluation plan. The general idea is that the fewer plans that are investigated by the optimizer, the less time it spends in compiling a query. On the other hand, because the optimizer skips some plans, it may miss finding an optimal plan.

The behavior of the optimizer with respect to the number of plans it evaluates can be controlled via two system variables:

The query cache stores the text of a SELECT statement together with the corresponding result that was sent to the client. If an identical statement is received later, the server retrieves the results from the query cache rather than parsing and executing the statement again.

The query cache is extremely useful in an environment where you have tables that do not change very often and for which the server receives many identical queries. This is a typical situation for many Web servers that generate many dynamic pages based on database content.

Some performance data for the query cache follows. These results were generated by running the MySQL benchmark suite on a Linux Alpha 2×500MHz system with 2GB RAM and a 64MB query cache.

To disable the query cache at server startup, set the query_cache_size system variable to 0. By disabling the query cache code, there is no noticeable overhead. If you build MySQL from source, query cache capabilities can be excluded from the server entirely by invoking configure with the --without-query-cache option.

SELECT * FROM tbl_name
Select * from tbl_name

SELECT SQL_CACHE id, name FROM customer;
SELECT SQL_NO_CACHE id, name FROM customer;

mysql> SHOW VARIABLES LIKE 'have_query_cache';
+------------------+-------+
| Variable_name    | Value |
+------------------+-------+
| have_query_cache | YES   |
+------------------+-------+

mysql> SET GLOBAL query_cache_size = 40000;
Query OK, 0 rows affected, 1 warning (0.00 sec)

mysql> SHOW WARNINGS\G
*************************** 1. row ***************************
  Level: Warning
   Code: 1282
Message: Query cache failed to set size 39936; new query cache size is 0

mysql> SET GLOBAL query_cache_size = 41984;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

mysql> SHOW VARIABLES LIKE 'query_cache_size';
+------------------+-------+
| Variable_name    | Value |
+------------------+-------+
| query_cache_size | 41984 |
+------------------+-------+

mysql> SET GLOBAL query_cache_size = 1000000;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.04 sec)

mysql> SHOW VARIABLES LIKE 'query_cache_size';
+------------------+--------+
| Variable_name    | Value  |
+------------------+--------+
| query_cache_size | 999424 | 
+------------------+--------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> SET SESSION query_cache_type = OFF;

mysql> SHOW VARIABLES LIKE 'have_query_cache';
+------------------+-------+
| Variable_name    | Value |
+------------------+-------+
| have_query_cache | YES   |
+------------------+-------+

mysql> SHOW STATUS LIKE 'Qcache%';
+-------------------------+--------+
| Variable_name           | Value  |
+-------------------------+--------+
| Qcache_free_blocks      | 36     |
| Qcache_free_memory      | 138488 |
| Qcache_hits             | 79570  |
| Qcache_inserts          | 27087  |
| Qcache_lowmem_prunes    | 3114   |
| Qcache_not_cached       | 22989  |
| Qcache_queries_in_cache | 415    |
| Qcache_total_blocks     | 912    |
+-------------------------+--------+

  Com_select
+ Qcache_hits
+ queries with errors found by parser

  Qcache_inserts
+ Qcache_not_cached
+ queries with errors found during the column-privileges check

When you are attempting to ascertain what your MySQL server is doing, it can be helpful to examine the process list, which is the set of threads currently executing within the server. Process list information is available from these sources:

You can always view information about your own threads. To view information about threads being executed for other accounts, you must have the PROCESS privilege.

Each process list entry contains several pieces of information:

The following sections list the possible Command values, and State values grouped by category. The meaning for some of these values is self-evident. For others, additional description is provided.

Most of the following tests were performed on Linux with the MySQL benchmarks, but they should give some indication for other operating systems and workloads.

You obtain the fastest executables when you link with -static.

On Linux, it is best to compile the server with pgcc and -O3. You need about 200MB memory to compile sql_yacc.cc with these options, because gcc or pgcc needs a great deal of memory to make all functions inline. You should also set CXX=gcc when configuring MySQL to avoid inclusion of the libstdc++ library, which is not needed. Note that with some versions of pgcc, the resulting binary runs only on true Pentium processors, even if you use the compiler option indicating that you want the resulting code to work on all x586-type processors (such as AMD).

By using a better compiler and compilation options, you can obtain a 10–30% speed increase in applications. This is particularly important if you compile the MySQL server yourself.

When we tested both the Cygnus CodeFusion and Fujitsu compilers, neither was sufficiently bug-free to allow MySQL to be compiled with optimizations enabled.

The standard MySQL binary distributions are compiled with support for all character sets. When you compile MySQL yourself, you should include support only for the character sets that you are going to use. This is controlled by the --with-charset option to configure.

Here is a list of some measurements that we have made:

Binary MySQL distributions for Linux that are provided by MySQL AB used to be compiled with pgcc. We had to go back to regular gcc due to a bug in pgcc that would generate binaries that do not run on AMD. We will continue using gcc until that bug is resolved. In the meantime, if you have a non-AMD machine, you can build a faster binary by compiling with pgcc. The standard MySQL Linux binary is linked statically to make it faster and more portable.

Connection manager threads handle client connection requests on the network interfaces that the server listens to. On all platforms, one manager thread handles TCP/IP connection requests. On Unix, this manager thread also handles Unix socket file connection requests. On Windows, a manager thread handles shared-memory connection requests, and another handles named-pipe connection requests. The server does not create threads to handle interfaces that it does not listen to. For example, a Windows server that does not have support for named-pipe connections enabled does not create a thread to handle them.

Connection manager threads associate each client connection with a thread dedicated to it that handles authentication and request processing for that connection. Manager threads create a new thread when necessary but try to avoid doing so by consulting the thread cache first to see whether it contains a thread that can be used for the connection. When a connection ends, its thread is returned to the thread cache if the cache is not full.

In this connection thread model, there are as many threads as there are clients currently connected, which has some drawbacks when server workload must scale to handle large numbers of connections. For example, thread creation and disposal becomes expensive. Also, each thread requires server and kernel resources, such as stack space. To accommodate a large number of simultaneous connections, the stack size per thread must be kept small, leading to a situation where it is either too small or the server consumes large amounts of memory. Exhaustion of other resources can occur as well, and scheduling overhead can become significant.

To control and monitor how the server manages threads that handle client connections, several system and status variables are relevant. (See Section 5.1.3, “System Variables”, and Section 5.1.6, “Status Variables”.)

The thread cache has a size determined by the thread_cache_size system variable. The default value is 0 (no caching), which causes a thread to be set up for each new connection and disposed of when the connection terminates. Set thread_cache_size to N to allow N inactive connection threads to be cached. thread_cache_size can be set at server startup or changed while the server runs.

To monitor the number of threads in the cache and how many threads have been created because a thread could not be taken from the cache, monitor the Threads_cached and Threads_created status variables.

You can set max_connections at server startup or at runtime to control the maximum number of clients that can connect simultaneously.

When the thread stack is too small, this limits the complexity of the SQL statements which the server can handle, the recursion depth of stored procedures, and other memory-consuming actions. To set a stack size of N bytes for each thread, start the server with --thread_stack=N.

The following list indicates some of the ways that the mysqld server uses memory. Where applicable, the name of the system variable relevant to the memory use is given:

ps and other system status programs may report that mysqld uses a lot of memory. This may be caused by thread stacks on different memory addresses. For example, the Solaris version of ps counts the unused memory between stacks as used memory. You can verify this by checking available swap with swap -s. We test mysqld with several memory-leakage detectors (both commercial and Open Source), so there should be no memory leaks.

In some cases, the server creates internal temporary tables while processing queries. A temporary table can be held in memory and processed by the MEMORY storage engine, or stored on disk and processed by the MyISAM storage engine. Temporary tables can be created under conditions such as these:

You can tell whether a query requires a temporary table by using EXPLAIN and checking the Extra column to see whether it says Using temporary. See Section 7.2.1, “Optimizing Queries with EXPLAIN”.

Some conditions prevent the use of a MEMORY temporary table, in which case the server uses a MyISAM table instead:

A temporary table that is created initially as a MEMORY table might be converted to a MyISAM table and stored on disk if it becomes too large. The max_heap_table_size system variable determines how large MEMORY tables are allowed to grow. It applies to all MEMORY tables, including those created with CREATE TABLE. However, for internal MEMORY tables, the actual maximum size is determined by max_heap_table_size in combination with tmp_table_size: Whichever value is smaller is the one that applies. If the size of an internal MEMORY table exceeds the limit, MySQL automatically converts it to an on-disk MyISAM table.

When a new client connects to mysqld, mysqld spawns a new thread to handle the request. This thread first checks whether the hostname is in the hostname cache. If not, the thread attempts to resolve the hostname:

You can disable DNS hostname lookups by starting mysqld with the --skip-name-resolve option. However, in this case, you can use only IP numbers in the MySQL grant tables.

If you have a very slow DNS and many hosts, you can get more performance by either disabling DNS lookups with --skip-name-resolve or by increasing the HOST_CACHE_SIZE define (default value: 128) and recompiling mysqld.

You can disable the hostname cache by starting the server with the --skip-host-cache option. To clear the hostname cache, issue a FLUSH HOSTS statement or execute the mysqladmin flush-hosts command.

To disallow TCP/IP connections entirely, start mysqld with the --skip-networking option.

You can move tables and databases from the database directory to other locations and replace them with symbolic links to the new locations. You might want to do this, for example, to move a database to a file system with more free space or increase the speed of your system by spreading your tables to different disk.

The recommended way to do this is simply to symlink databases to a different disk. Symlink tables only as a last resort.

shell> mkdir /dr1/databases/test
shell> ln -s /dr1/databases/test /path/to/datadir

shell> cd /path/to/datadir
shell> ln -s db1 db2

if (!(MyFlags & MY_RESOLVE_LINK) ||
    (!lstat(filename,&stat_buff) && S_ISLNK(stat_buff.st_mode)))

if (1)