Folks, I read following (PostgreSQL: Documentation: 9.6: citext) and it does not hold true in my testing.. i.e citext is not performing better than lower.Am I missing something? help is appreciated.
| | | | | | | | | | | PostgreSQL: Documentation: 9.6: citext | | | "citext is not as efficient as text because the operator functions and the B-tree comparison functions must make copies of the data and convert it to lower case for comparisons. It is, however, slightly more efficient than using lower to get case-insensitive matching." Here is what I have done drop table test;drop table testci; CREATE TABLE test (id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY,name character varying(254));CREATE TABLE testci (id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY,name citext ); INSERT INTO test(id, name)SELECT generate_series(1000001,2000000), (md5(random()::text)); INSERT INTO testci(id, name)SELECT generate_series(1,1000000), (md5(random()::text)); Now, I have done sequential search explain (analyze on, format yaml) select * from test where lower(name)=lower('f6d7d5be1d0bed1cca11540d3a2667de'); - Plan: Node Type: "Seq Scan" Parallel Aware: false Relation Name: "test" Alias: "test" Startup Cost: 0.00 Total Cost: 23334.00 Plan Rows: 5000 Plan Width: 37 Actual Startup Time: 0.016 Actual Total Time: 680.199 Actual Rows: 1 Actual Loops: 1 Filter: "(lower((name)::text) = 'f6d7d5be1d0bed1cca11540d3a2667de'::text)" Rows Removed by Filter: 999999 Planning Time: 0.045 Triggers: Execution Time: 680.213 explain (analyze on, format yaml) select * from testci where name='956d692092f0b9f85f36bf2b2501f3ad'; - Plan: Node Type: "Seq Scan" Parallel Aware: false Relation Name: "testci" Alias: "testci" Startup Cost: 0.00 Total Cost: 20834.00 Plan Rows: 1 Plan Width: 37 Actual Startup Time: 0.017 Actual Total Time: 1184.485 Actual Rows: 1 Actual Loops: 1 Filter: "(name = '956d692092f0b9f85f36bf2b2501f3ad'::citext)" Rows Removed by Filter: 999999 Planning Time: 0.029 Triggers: Execution Time: 1184.496 You can see sequential searches with lower working twice as fast as citext. Now I added index on citext and equivalent functional index (lower) on text. CREATE INDEX textlowerindex ON test (lower(name)); create index textindex on test(name); Index creation took longer with citext v/s creating lower functional index. Now here comes execution with indexes explain (analyze on, format yaml) select * from test where lower(name)=lower('f6d7d5be1d0bed1cca11540d3a2667de'); - Plan: Node Type: "Bitmap Heap Scan" Parallel Aware: false Relation Name: "test" Alias: "test" Startup Cost: 187.18 Total Cost: 7809.06 Plan Rows: 5000 Plan Width: 37 Actual Startup Time: 0.020 Actual Total Time: 0.020 Actual Rows: 1 Actual Loops: 1 Recheck Cond: "(lower((name)::text) = 'f6d7d5be1d0bed1cca11540d3a2667de'::text)" Rows Removed by Index Recheck: 0 Exact Heap Blocks: 1 Lossy Heap Blocks: 0 Plans: - Node Type: "Bitmap Index Scan" Parent Relationship: "Outer" Parallel Aware: false Index Name: "textlowerindex" Startup Cost: 0.00 Total Cost: 185.93 Plan Rows: 5000 Plan Width: 0 Actual Startup Time: 0.016 Actual Total Time: 0.016 Actual Rows: 1 Actual Loops: 1 Index Cond: "(lower((name)::text) = 'f6d7d5be1d0bed1cca11540d3a2667de'::text)" Planning Time: 0.051 Triggers: Execution Time: 0.035 explain (analyze on, format yaml) select * from test where lower(name)=lower('f6d7d5be1d0bed1cca11540d3a2667de'); - Plan: Node Type: "Index Scan" Parallel Aware: false Scan Direction: "Forward" Index Name: "citextindex" Relation Name: "testci" Alias: "testci" Startup Cost: 0.42 Total Cost: 8.44 Plan Rows: 1 Plan Width: 37 Actual Startup Time: 0.049 Actual Total Time: 0.050 Actual Rows: 1 Actual Loops: 1 Index Cond: "(name = '956d692092f0b9f85f36bf2b2501f3ad'::citext)" Rows Removed by Index Recheck: 0 Planning Time: 0.051 Triggers: Execution Time: 0.064 Deepak