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SQL Optimization

Indexes allow MySQL to find rows matching a WHERE clause quickly by acting as pointers to rows. While indexes improve query performance, they require additional storage and slow down data modification operations. The optimal configuration uses indexes on columns frequently used in queries to balance these tradeoffs.

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43 views2 pages

SQL Optimization

Indexes allow MySQL to find rows matching a WHERE clause quickly by acting as pointers to rows. While indexes improve query performance, they require additional storage and slow down data modification operations. The optimal configuration uses indexes on columns frequently used in queries to balance these tradeoffs.

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speedmail71
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Optimization and Indexes

The best way to improve the performance of SELECT operations is to create indexes on one
or more of the columns that are tested in the query. The index entries act like pointers to
the table rows, allowing the query to quickly determine which rows match a condition in
the WHERE clause, and retrieve the other column values for those rows. All MySQL data types
can be indexed.
Although it can be tempting to create an indexes for every possible column used in a query,
unnecessary indexes waste space and waste time for MySQL to determine which indexes to
use. Indexes also add to the cost of inserts, updates, and deletes because each index must
be updated. You must find the right balance to achieve fast queries using the optimal set of
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. This is much faster than reading every row sequentially.

Primary Key Optimization


The primary key for a table represents the column or set of columns that you use in your
most vital queries. It has an associated index, for fast query performance. Query
performance benefits from the NOT NULL optimization, because it cannot include
any NULL values. With the InnoDB storage engine, the table data is physically organized to
do ultra-fast lookups and sorts based on the primary key column or columns.
If your table is big and important, but does not have an obvious column or set of columns to
use as a primary key, you might create a separate column with auto-increment values to use
as the primary key. These unique IDs can serve as pointers to corresponding rows in other
tables when you join tables using foreign keys.

Foreign Key Optimization


If a table has many columns, and you query many different combinations of columns, it
might be efficient to split the less-frequently used data into separate tables with a few
columns each, and relate them back to the main table by duplicating the numeric ID column
from the main table. That way, each small table can have a primary key for fast lookups of
its data, and you can query just the set of columns that you need using a join operation.
Depending on how the data is distributed, the queries might perform less I/O and take up
less cache memory because the relevant columns are packed together on disk. (To
maximize performance, queries try to read as few data blocks as possible from disk; tables
with only a few columns can fit more rows in each data block.)
CREATE INDEX Syntax
CREATE [UNIQUE | FULLTEXT | SPATIAL] INDEX index_name
[index_type]
ON tbl_name (key_part,...)
[index_option]
[algorithm_option | lock_option] ...

key_part: {col_name [(length)] | (expr)} [ASC | DESC]

index_option:
KEY_BLOCK_SIZE [=] value
| index_type
| WITH PARSER parser_name
| COMMENT 'string'
| {VISIBLE | INVISIBLE}

index_type:
USING {BTREE | HASH}

algorithm_option:
ALGORITHM [=] {DEFAULT | INPLACE | COPY}

lock_option:
LOCK [=] {DEFAULT | NONE | SHARED | EXCLUSIVE}

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)
);

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