I answer my own question, if only for my own records. The following query is about 5-6 times faster than the original. Of course, if anyone else has other ideas, I'd be happy to hear them.
Sean
explain analyze select from_id,to_id,val from exprsdb.correlation where from_id in (select to_id from exprsdb.correlation where from_id=2424 order by val desc limit 100) and to_id in (select to_id from exprsdb.correlation where from_id=2424 order by val desc limit 100) and val>0.6 and to_id<from_id;
Might not be any faster, but you can do this as a self-join with subquery:
SELECT c1.from_id, c1.to_id, c1.val FROM correlation c1, ( SELECT to_id FROM correlation WHERE from_id=2424 ORDER BY val DESC LIMIT 100 ) AS c2 ( SELECT to_id FROM correlation WHERE from_id=2424 ORDER BY val DESC LIMIT 100 ) AS c3 WHERE c1.from_id = c2.to_id AND c1.to_id = c3.to_id AND c1.val > 0.5 AND c1.to_id < from_id ;
I think PG should be smart enough nowadays to figure out these two queries are basically the same.
--
Richard Huxton
Archonet Ltd
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