I encountered a bug where the same query behaves differently under different LC_CTYPE settings, "C" and "en_US.UTF-8".
The query is of type SELECT ... WHERE a like 'x' and b like 'y', where relevant indexes exist for a and b, and 'x' and 'y' strings do not contain the % character. When database is initdb'ed with LC_CTYPE=C, the query uses index scan; when LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 it is the sequential scan. The table is large, so it doesn't seem that planner selects seqscan out of performance reasons. Also, I think this is a bug since when the query contains only one 'like' statement, the query planner does use the index, no matter what $LC_CTYPE value is. Details: pgsql 8.0.3 LC_CTYPE=C: # explain select * from queues where username like 'a' and hostname like 'b'; QUERY PLAN ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Index Scan using queues_idx_hostname_time on queues (cost=0.00..11.48 rows=1 width=161) Index Cond: (hostname = 'b'::text) Filter: ((username ~~ 'a'::text) AND (hostname ~~ 'b'::text)) (3 rows) LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8: # explain select * from queues where username like 'a' and hostname like 'b'; QUERY PLAN ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Seq Scan on queues (cost=100000000.00..100000016.15 rows=1 width=161) Filter: ((username ~~ 'a'::text) AND (hostname ~~ 'b'::text)) (2 rows) # \d queues ... username | text | not null hostname | text | not null -- Sincerely, Dmitry Karasik --- catpipe Systems ApS *BSD solutions, consulting, development www.catpipe.net +45 7021 0050 ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 7: don't forget to increase your free space map settings