On Tue, Dec 19, 2006 at 11:19:39PM -0800, Brian Herlihy wrote: > Actually, I think I answered my own question already. But I want to > confirm - Is the GROUP BY faster because it doesn't have to sort results, > whereas DISTINCT must produce sorted results? This wasn't clear to me from > the documentation. If it's true, then I could save considerable time by > using GROUP BY where I have been using DISTINCT in the past. Usually I > simply want a count of the distinct values, and there is no need to sort > for that.
You are right; at the moment, GROUP BY is more intelligent than DISTINCT, even if they have to compare the same columns. This is, as always, something that could be improved in a future release, TTBOMK. /* Steinar */ -- Homepage: http://www.sesse.net/ ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 1: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate subscribe-nomail command to [EMAIL PROTECTED] so that your message can get through to the mailing list cleanly
