Bruno Wolff III <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > DISTINCT will require a sort step to remove duplicates. GROUP BY can use > either a sort or hash aggregate plan. If there are few distinct values, > the hash aggregate plan can be much faster.
The DISTINCT code hasn't been revisited in a long time. One obstacle to improving it is that it's very tightly intertwined with ORDER BY. While fixing that might be just a Small Matter Of Programming, it's not clear how to decouple them without breaking DISTINCT ON. regards, tom lane ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 6: explain analyze is your friend