I wanted to utilize the power of index-only scans in Postgres and experimented with one table:
CREATE TABLE dest.contexts
(
id integer NOT NULL,
phrase_id integer NOT NULL,
lang character varying(5) NOT NULL,
ranking_value double precision,
index_min integer,
index_max integer,
case_sensitive boolean,
is_enabled boolean,
is_to_sync boolean NOT NULL DEFAULT true
);
insert into dest.contexts select * from source.contexts;
alter table dest.contexts
add constraint pk_contexts primary key (id, phrase_id, lang);
CREATE INDEX idx_contexts_
ON dest.contexts
USING btree
(id, is_enabled, lang, phrase_id, ranking_value, index_min, index_max, case_sensitive);
The index covers all columns I want to use in the next query:
explain analyze
select ranking_value, index_min, index_max, case_sensitive
from dest.contexts
where id = 456 and is_enabled
I check the plan immediately after creation:
Bitmap Heap Scan on contexts (cost=4.41..31.46 rows=12 width=17) (actual time=0.045..0.045 rows=0 loops=1)
Recheck Cond: (id = 456)
Filter: is_enabled
-> Bitmap Index Scan on idx_contexts_ (cost=0.00..4.40 rows=12 width=0) (actual time=0.038..0.038 rows=0 loops=1)
Index Cond: ((id = 456) AND (is_enabled = true))
Planning time: 0.631 ms
Execution time: 0.093 ms
It is strange, but OK...
In several seconds it changes to another (autovacuum?)
Index Scan using pk_contexts on contexts (cost=0.28..17.93 rows=6 width=17) (actual time=0.027..0.027 rows=0 loops=1)
Index Cond: (id = 456)
Filter: is_enabled
Planning time: 0.185 ms
Execution time: 0.070 ms
I try to force it to use index-only scan:
analyze dest.contexts
But it does not change anything. Then I do
vacuum verbose analyze dest.contexts;
INFO: vacuuming "dest.contexts"
INFO: index "pk_contexts" now contains 4845 row versions in 21 pages
DETAIL: 0 index row versions were removed.
0 index pages have been deleted, 0 are currently reusable.
CPU 0.00s/0.00u sec elapsed 0.00 sec.
INFO: index "idx_contexts_" now contains 4845 row versions in 37 pages
DETAIL: 0 index row versions were removed.
0 index pages have been deleted, 0 are currently reusable.
CPU 0.00s/0.00u sec elapsed 0.00 sec.
INFO: "contexts": found 0 removable, 4845 nonremovable row versions in 41 out of 41 pages
DETAIL: 0 dead row versions cannot be removed yet.
There were 0 unused item pointers.
0 pages are entirely empty.
CPU 0.00s/0.00u sec elapsed 0.00 sec.
INFO: analyzing "dest.contexts"
INFO: "contexts": scanned 41 of 41 pages, containing 4845 live rows and 0 dead rows; 4845 rows in sample, 4845 estimated total rows
And here I finally get what I want:
Index Only Scan using idx_contexts_ on contexts (cost=0.28..4.40 rows=6 width=17) (actual time=0.014..0.014 rows=0 loops=1)
Index Cond: ((id = 456) AND (is_enabled = true))
Filter: is_enabled
Heap Fetches: 0
Planning time: 0.247 ms
Execution time: 0.052 ms
So here are the questions:
- Why does not
analyze
teach it to use the large 'all-covering' index? - Why does
vacuum analyze
do it? - My table was filled from the scratch with one large insert. Why does
vacuum
do anything at all? To my mind there is nothing to vacuum there.