Splitting complex queries into two parts?

  • Hi all,

    Quick question here. Let's say I have a fairly large table, which contains an ID field that is a PRIMARY KEY IDENTITY field. I also have a dozen other fields, and lets say 100 million rows in the table.

    If I have a query in which I am asking for all the fields in the table, as well as doing some WHERE clause filtering, would it be faster to take one of the WHERE clauses that reduces the row count considerably, use that clause with just the ID in the SELECT, and dump the results into a temporary table, then do the rest of the filtering in that small table? Or is the SQL Server engine smart enough to do that on its own?

    EX:

    CREATE TABLE #IDs

    (

    ID INT

    )

    INSERT INTO #IDs (ID)

    SELECT ID

    FROM TableA

    WHERE Clause1 BETWEEN 500 AND 500000

    SELECT

    FIELDS

    FROM TableA

    JOIN #IDs ON TableA.ID = #IDs.ID

    WHERE[OTHER CLAUSES]

    VS

    CREATE TABLE #IDs

    (

    ID INT,

    FIELDS

    )

    INSERT INTO #IDs (ID, FIELDS)

    SELECT ID, FIELDS

    FROM TableA

    WHERE Clause1 BETWEEN 500 AND 500000

    SELECT

    FIELDS

    FROM #IDs

    WHERE[OTHER CLAUSES]

    VS

    SELECT

    FIELDS

    FROM TableA

    WHEREClause1 BETWEEN 500 AND 500000

    AND [OTHER CLAUSES]

  • Your best bet is to go with a single where clause with all your filters , the optimser will be able to filter the result sets on its own , and doesn't need help such as filtered result sets with fewer rows.

    You can look at the execution plan for the above statement to see this in action.

    Jayanth Kurup[/url]

  • The answer to this might change if joins are in the equation though. I don't know that the optimizer will always choose to apply the criteria before it attempts to join large tables together, which could in some cases lead to a plan that is far from optimal. Someone feel free to correct me on that, but that's my understanding.

    Seth Phelabaum


    Consistency is only a virtue if you're not a screwup. 😉

    Links: How to Post Sample Data[/url] :: Running Totals[/url] :: Tally Table[/url] :: Cross Tabs/Pivots[/url] :: String Concatenation[/url]

  • Your right ,the performance would vary depending on which type of join is used by the optimizer and available indexes, my previous response did not conider joins btw.

    type of join hints

    http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms189313.aspx

    Jayanth Kurup[/url]

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