Hi,
I've noticed that regular expressions which are anchored at the
beginning of the text but have an optional part at the beginning
(e.g. '^(ge)?kommen$') are not evaluated correctly if there is an
index on the column.
Consider the following table:
#+BEGIN_SRC sql
CREATE TABLE annotation (
id SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
name VARCHAR(20),
value VARCHAR(20)
);
#+END_SRC
And the following query:
#+BEGIN_SRC sql
SELECT count(*) FROM annotation WHERE name = 'lemma' AND value ~
'^(ge)?kommen$';
#+END_SRC
In my data set, this query should return 916 results; 911 rows match
'kommen' and 5 rows match 'gekommen'.
Here is the plan with an index on column name:
#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
QUERY PLAN
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Aggregate (cost=20101.31..20101.32 rows=1 width=0)
-> Bitmap Heap Scan on annotation (cost=282.55..20101.31 rows=2 width=0)
Recheck Cond: ((name)::text = 'lemma'::text)
Filter: ((value)::text ~ '^(ge)?kommen$'::text)
-> Bitmap Index Scan on idx_test_name (cost=0.00..282.55 rows=15196
width=0)
Index Cond: ((name)::text = 'lemma'::text)
#+END_EXAMPLE
This plan correctly retrieves 916 rows. However, if I create an index
on the column value, the plan is as follows:
#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
QUERY PLAN
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Aggregate (cost=910.50..910.51 rows=1 width=0)
-> Bitmap Heap Scan on annotation (cost=619.38..910.49 rows=2 width=0)
Recheck Cond: ((name)::text = 'lemma'::text)
Filter: ((value)::text ~ '^(ge)?kommen$'::text)
-> BitmapAnd (cost=619.38..619.38 rows=76 width=0)
-> Bitmap Index Scan on idx_test_name (cost=0.00..282.55
rows=15196 width=0)
Index Cond: ((name)::text = 'lemma'::text)
-> Bitmap Index Scan on idx_test_value (cost=0.00..336.58
rows=15196 width=0)
Index Cond: (((value)::text ~>=~ 'ge'::text) AND
((value)::text ~<~ 'gf'::text))
#+END_EXAMPLE
This plan only retrieves the 5 rows matching 'gekommen'. Note the
usage of the index on the value column even though the first character
of the regular expression is not fixed.
The index creation command was:
#+BEGIN_SRC sql
CREATE INDEX idx_test_value ON annotation (value varchar_pattern_ops);
#+END_SRC
Note that I can force the correct evaluation of the regular expression
by prepending '(?e)'; however, this should not be necessary if I
understand the documentation correctly.
#+BEGIN_SRC sql
SELECT count(*) FROM annotation WHERE name = 'lemma' AND value ~
'(?e)^(ge)?kommen$';
#+END_SRC
I'm using PostgreSQL 9.1.4.
Cheers,
Viktor
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