Tom Lane wrote:
Rich Doughty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

EXPLAIN SELECT *
FROM
    tokens.ta_tokens      t  LEFT JOIN
    tokens.ta_tokenhist   h1 ON t.token_id = h1.token_id LEFT JOIN
    tokens.ta_tokenhist   h2 ON t.token_id = h2.token_id
WHERE
    h1.histdate = 'now';


EXPLAIN SELECT *
FROM
    tokens.ta_tokens      t  LEFT JOIN
    tokens.ta_tokenhist   h1 ON t.token_id = h1.token_id LEFT JOIN
    tokens.ta_tokenhist   h2 ON t.token_id = h2.token_id
WHERE
    h2.histdate = 'now';


The reason these are different is that the second case constrains only
the last-to-be-joined table, so the full cartesian product of t and h1
has to be formed.  If this wasn't what you had in mind, you might be
able to rearrange the order of the LEFT JOINs, but bear in mind that
in general, changing outer-join ordering changes the results.  (This
is why the planner won't fix it for you.)

FWIW mysql 4.1 (and i'm no fan at all of mysql) completes both these queries
in approximately 3 seconds. postgres does the first in 6 seconds and the
second in a lot longer (eventually abandoned).


--

  - Rich Doughty

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