"Jim C. Nasby" <jnasby@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes: > On Fri, Mar 24, 2006 at 01:49:17PM +0100, Svenne Krap wrote: >> explain select dataset_id, entity, sum(amount) from entrydata_current >> where flow_direction in (select * from outflow_direction(dataset_id)) >> and dataset_id in (select * from get_dataset_ids(122)) group by >> dataset_id, entity; > The issue is that the planner has no way to know what's comming back > from get_dataset_ids. More specifically, the first IN is not optimizable into a join because the results of the sub-SELECT depend on the current row of the outer query. The second IN is being optimized fine, but the first one is what's killing you. I'd suggest refactoring the functions into something that returns a set of outflow_direction/dataset_id pairs, and then phrase the query as where (flow_direction, dataset_id) in (select * from new_func(122)) You could do it without refactoring: where (flow_direction, dataset_id) in (select outflow_direction(id),id from get_dataset_ids(122) id) however this won't work if outflow_direction() is a plpgsql function because of limitations in plpgsql's set-function support. (It will work if outflow_direction() is a SQL function, or you could kluge it as a SQL function wrapper around a plpgsql function.) regards, tom lane