Re: [PERFORM] Reverse Key Index

2015-03-05 Thread Sven R. Kunze

On 26.02.2015 13:37, Heikki Linnakangas wrote:

On 02/26/2015 12:31 AM, Josh Berkus wrote:

On 02/14/2015 10:35 AM, Sven R. Kunze wrote:

Thanks for the immediate reply.

I understand the use case is quite limited.

On the other hand, I see potential when it comes to applications which
use PostgreSQL. There, programmers would have to change a lot of 
code to
tweak existing (and more importantly working) queries to 
hash/reverse an
id column first. Using ORMs would make this change even more painful 
and

maybe even impossible.

When reading
https://richardfoote.wordpress.com/2008/01/14/introduction-to-reverse-key-indexes-part-i/ 


carefully, it also seems to work with index scan partially in case of
equality comparisons.


Seems like a good use for SP-GiST.  Go for it!


A b-tree opclass that just compares from right-to-left would work just
as well, and perform better.

- Heikki




Thanks for the hint. That also sounds easy to implement.

Regards,

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Tel: +49 (0)371 33714721, Fax: +49 (0)371 5347920
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Re: [PERFORM] Reverse Key Index

2015-02-26 Thread Sven R. Kunze

On 26.02.2015 13:48, Thomas Kellerer wrote:

Sven R. Kunze schrieb am 26.02.2015 um 13:23:

If you think Reverse Key Indexes have no usage here in PostgreSQL, you should 
not support convenience features
for easily improving performance without breaking the querying API


Sorry for my bad English: The if-clause ends with just let me know and 
we can close the issue immediately. You quoted an or'ed if-part.


Point was, if you see no benefits or you have no intention to include it 
anyway (patch provided or not), we can stop now. I am not married to 
this features and right now I can live without it.



It's also unclear to me which performance you are referring to.
Insert performance? Retrieval performance? Concurrency?

The use-case for reverse indexes in Oracle is pretty small: it's _only_ about 
the contention when doing a lot of inserts with increasing numbers (because the 
different transactions will be blocked when accessing the blocks in question).
Exactly. That would include logging databases and big/high-frequency 
OLTP systems.



As Postgres manages inserts differently than Oracle I'm not so sure that this 
problem exists in Postgres the same way it does in Oracle.

Maybe, PostgreSQL internal experts can answer that question thoroughly.


That's why I asked if you have a _specific_ problem.

I see. Answering explicitly: no, I don't.


Richard Footes blog post is mostly about the myth that _if_ you have a reverse 
index this is only used for equality operations.
It does not claim that a reverse index is faster than a regular index _if_ it 
is used for a range scan.

Correct.


The question is: do you think you need a reverse index because you have a performance 
problem with when doing many, many inserts at the same time using close-by 
values into a table that uses a btree index on the column?


I presume that Oracle would not invest resources in implementing 
features which would have no benefits for their customers. Thus, the 
research on this topic should already been done for us.


That given, if we can answer your question 'whether PostgreSQL handles 
it differently from Oracle so that the contention issue cannot arise' 
can be answered with a no, I tend to say: yes.



Or do you think you need a reverse index to improve the performance of a range scan? If 
that is the then you can easily us a gin/gist index or even a simple btree index using a 
trigram index to speed up a LIKE '%abc%' (something Oracle can't do at all) 
without having to worry about obfuscation layers (aka ORM).


From what I gather, reverse key indexes are not about improving range 
scans but about improving insertion speed due to diversification of 
insertion location.



I actually used Richard Foote's posts only to get a proper understanding 
of reverse key indexes and what can and cannot be done with them and 
where their issues are:


https://richardfoote.wordpress.com/2008/01/14/introduction-to-reverse-key-indexes-part-i/
https://richardfoote.wordpress.com/2008/01/16/introduction-to-reverse-key-indexes-part-ii-another-myth-bites-the-dust/
https://richardfoote.wordpress.com/2008/01/18/introduction-to-reverse-key-indexes-part-iii-a-space-oddity/
https://richardfoote.wordpress.com/2008/01/21/introduction-to-reverse-key-indexes-part-iv-cluster-one/

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Sven R. Kunze
TBZ-PARIV GmbH, Bernsdorfer Str. 210-212, 09126 Chemnitz
Tel: +49 (0)371 33714721, Fax: +49 (0)371 5347920
e-mail: srku...@tbz-pariv.de
web: www.tbz-pariv.de

Geschäftsführer: Dr. Reiner Wohlgemuth
Sitz der Gesellschaft: Chemnitz
Registergericht: Chemnitz HRB 8543



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Re: [PERFORM] Reverse Key Index

2015-02-26 Thread Heikki Linnakangas

On 02/26/2015 12:31 AM, Josh Berkus wrote:

On 02/14/2015 10:35 AM, Sven R. Kunze wrote:

Thanks for the immediate reply.

I understand the use case is quite limited.

On the other hand, I see potential when it comes to applications which
use PostgreSQL. There, programmers would have to change a lot of code to
tweak existing (and more importantly working) queries to hash/reverse an
id column first. Using ORMs would make this change even more painful and
maybe even impossible.

When reading
https://richardfoote.wordpress.com/2008/01/14/introduction-to-reverse-key-indexes-part-i/
carefully, it also seems to work with index scan partially in case of
equality comparisons.


Seems like a good use for SP-GiST.  Go for it!


A b-tree opclass that just compares from right-to-left would work just
as well, and perform better.

- Heikki



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Re: [PERFORM] Reverse Key Index

2015-02-26 Thread Thomas Kellerer
Sven R. Kunze schrieb am 26.02.2015 um 13:23:
 If you think Reverse Key Indexes have no usage here in PostgreSQL, you should 
 not support convenience features 
 for easily improving performance without breaking the querying API 

It's also unclear to me which performance you are referring to.
Insert performance? Retrieval performance? Concurrency? 

The use-case for reverse indexes in Oracle is pretty small: it's _only_ about 
the contention when doing a lot of inserts with increasing numbers (because the 
different transactions will be blocked when accessing the blocks in question). 

As Postgres manages inserts differently than Oracle I'm not so sure that this 
problem exists in Postgres the same way it does in Oracle.
That's why I asked if you have a _specific_ problem. 

Richard Footes blog post is mostly about the myth that _if_ you have a reverse 
index this is only used for equality operations. 
It does not claim that a reverse index is faster than a regular index _if_ it 
is used for a range scan. 

The question is: do you think you need a reverse index because you have a 
performance problem with when doing many, many inserts at the same time using 
close-by values into a table that uses a btree index on the column? 

Or do you think you need a reverse index to improve the performance of a range 
scan? If that is the then you can easily us a gin/gist index or even a simple 
btree index using a trigram index to speed up a LIKE '%abc%' (something 
Oracle can't do at all) without having to worry about obfuscation layers (aka 
ORM).

Thomas






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Re: [PERFORM] Reverse Key Index

2015-02-26 Thread Thomas Kellerer
Sven R. Kunze schrieb am 26.02.2015 um 12:04:
 I just thought about btree indexes here mainly because they well-known and 
 well-used in ORM frameworks. 

If your ORM framework needs to know about the internals of an index definition 
or even requires a certain index type, then you should ditch that ORM framework.

Apart from indexes supporting business constraints (e.g. a unique index) 
neither the application nor the the ORM framework should care about indexes at 
all.

 does PostgreSQL support the concept of reverse key indexing as described 
 here? 

The real question is: why do you think you need such an index? 
Do you have any performance problems with the existing BTree index? If yes, 
which problem exactly? 

Thomas





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Re: [PERFORM] Reverse Key Index

2015-02-26 Thread Sven R. Kunze

On 25.02.2015 23:31, Josh Berkus wrote:

On 02/14/2015 10:35 AM, Sven R. Kunze wrote:

Thanks for the immediate reply.

I understand the use case is quite limited.

On the other hand, I see potential when it comes to applications which
use PostgreSQL. There, programmers would have to change a lot of code to
tweak existing (and more importantly working) queries to hash/reverse an
id column first. Using ORMs would make this change even more painful and
maybe even impossible.

When reading
https://richardfoote.wordpress.com/2008/01/14/introduction-to-reverse-key-indexes-part-i/
carefully, it also seems to work with index scan partially in case of
equality comparisons.

Seems like a good use for SP-GiST.  Go for it!



I just thought about btree indexes here mainly because they well-known 
and well-used in ORM frameworks. Considering the documentation and 
third-party posts on GiST and btree_gist, at least to me, it seems as if 
people would not want to use that for integers; which in turn is the 
main use-case scenario for reverse key indexes.


--
Sven R. Kunze
TBZ-PARIV GmbH, Bernsdorfer Str. 210-212, 09126 Chemnitz
Tel: +49 (0)371 33714721, Fax: +49 (0)371 5347920
e-mail: srku...@tbz-pariv.de
web: www.tbz-pariv.de

Geschäftsführer: Dr. Reiner Wohlgemuth
Sitz der Gesellschaft: Chemnitz
Registergericht: Chemnitz HRB 8543



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Re: [PERFORM] Reverse Key Index

2015-02-26 Thread Sven R. Kunze

On 26.02.2015 12:45, Thomas Kellerer wrote:

Sven R. Kunze schrieb am 26.02.2015 um 12:04:

I just thought about btree indexes here mainly because they well-known and 
well-used in ORM frameworks.

If your ORM framework needs to know about the internals of an index definition 
or even requires a certain index type, then you should ditch that ORM framework.


As I said Considering the documentation and third-party posts on GiST 
and btree_gist, at least to me, it seems as if people would not want to 
use that for integers; which in turn is the main use-case scenario for 
reverse key indexes.



Apart from indexes supporting business constraints (e.g. a unique index) 
neither the application nor the the ORM framework should care about indexes at 
all.


Well, the world is not perfect: 
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/LeakyAbstractions.html



does PostgreSQL support the concept of reverse key indexing as described here?

The real question is: why do you think you need such an index?
Do you have any performance problems with the existing BTree index? If yes, 
which problem exactly?



This is not the real question. I never said I personally have to solve 
issue around that. If so, I would have provide more detailed information 
on the issue.


However, I clearly see benefits of Oracle's solution over You could get 
the effect easily enough with an expression index on a byte-reversing 
function. A related thing that people often do is create an index on a 
hash function.


These benefits, I described here: On the other hand, I see potential 
when it comes to applications which use PostgreSQL. There, programmers 
would have to change a lot of code to tweak existing (and more 
importantly working) queries to hash/reverse an id column first. Using 
ORMs would make this change even more painful and maybe even impossible.



So, this discussion is more about what can PostgreSQL offer in 
comparison to already existing solutions. I perfectly see Tom's proposal 
as a as-is solution but it has the drawbacks described above.



If you think Reverse Key Indexes have no usage here in PostgreSQL, you 
should not support convenience features for easily improving performance 
without breaking the querying API or you won't have any intentions to 
include such a patch, just let me know and we can close the issue 
immediately.


--
Sven R. Kunze
TBZ-PARIV GmbH, Bernsdorfer Str. 210-212, 09126 Chemnitz
Tel: +49 (0)371 33714721, Fax: +49 (0)371 5347920
e-mail: srku...@tbz-pariv.de
web: www.tbz-pariv.de

Geschäftsführer: Dr. Reiner Wohlgemuth
Sitz der Gesellschaft: Chemnitz
Registergericht: Chemnitz HRB 8543



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Re: [PERFORM] Reverse Key Index

2015-02-25 Thread Josh Berkus
On 02/14/2015 10:35 AM, Sven R. Kunze wrote:
 Thanks for the immediate reply.
 
 I understand the use case is quite limited.
 
 On the other hand, I see potential when it comes to applications which
 use PostgreSQL. There, programmers would have to change a lot of code to
 tweak existing (and more importantly working) queries to hash/reverse an
 id column first. Using ORMs would make this change even more painful and
 maybe even impossible.
 
 When reading
 https://richardfoote.wordpress.com/2008/01/14/introduction-to-reverse-key-indexes-part-i/
 carefully, it also seems to work with index scan partially in case of
 equality comparisons.

Seems like a good use for SP-GiST.  Go for it!

-- 
Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL Experts Inc.
http://pgexperts.com


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Re: [PERFORM] Reverse Key Index

2015-02-14 Thread Tom Lane
Sven R. Kunze srku...@tbz-pariv.de writes:
 does PostgreSQL support the concept of reverse key indexing as described 
 here? I couldn't find any documentation on this yet.

 http://www.toadworld.com/platforms/oracle/w/wiki/11075.reverse-key-index-from-the-concept-to-internals.aspx

There's nothing built-in for that (and frankly, it doesn't sound useful
enough that we'd ever add it).  You could get the effect easily enough
with an expression index on a byte-reversing function.  A related thing
that people often do is create an index on a hash function.

regards, tom lane


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Re: [PERFORM] Reverse Key Index

2015-02-14 Thread Sven R. Kunze

Thanks for the immediate reply.

I understand the use case is quite limited.

On the other hand, I see potential when it comes to applications which 
use PostgreSQL. There, programmers would have to change a lot of code to 
tweak existing (and more importantly working) queries to hash/reverse an 
id column first. Using ORMs would make this change even more painful and 
maybe even impossible.


When reading 
https://richardfoote.wordpress.com/2008/01/14/introduction-to-reverse-key-indexes-part-i/ 
carefully, it also seems to work with index scan partially in case of 
equality comparisons.



On 14.02.2015 19:18, Tom Lane wrote:

Sven R. Kunze srku...@tbz-pariv.de writes:

does PostgreSQL support the concept of reverse key indexing as described
here? I couldn't find any documentation on this yet.
http://www.toadworld.com/platforms/oracle/w/wiki/11075.reverse-key-index-from-the-concept-to-internals.aspx

There's nothing built-in for that (and frankly, it doesn't sound useful
enough that we'd ever add it).  You could get the effect easily enough
with an expression index on a byte-reversing function.  A related thing
that people often do is create an index on a hash function.

regards, tom lane



--
Sven R. Kunze
TBZ-PARIV GmbH, Bernsdorfer Str. 210-212, 09130 Chemnitz
Tel: +49 (0)371 33714721, Fax: +49 (0)371 5347920
e-mail: srku...@tbz-pariv.de
web: www.tbz-pariv.de

Geschäftsführer: Dr. Reiner Wohlgemuth
Sitz der Gesellschaft: Chemnitz
Registergericht: Chemnitz HRB 8543



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