I'm running in some weird (IMHO) bahviour. When I search a table for certain text (equality est on the relelvant field) it takes much more time than doing the same test by adding a trailing '%' and using the LIKE operator. With much more I mean 1000+ times slower. This is the table (sorry for the Italian strings): ----| PSQL |---- noa=# \d ts_t_records Tabella "public.ts_t_records" Colonna | Tipo | Modificatori ---------------+--------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------- fiel_uniqueid | bigint | not null item_uniqueid | bigint | not null reco_alphanum | text | not null default ''::text reco_floating | double precision | default 0.0 reco_integral | bigint | default 0 reco_timedate | timestamp with time zone | default now() reco_isactive | boolean | default true reco_effectiv | timestamp with time zone | default '-infinity'::timestamp with time zone reco_uniqueid | bigint | not null default nextval('ts_t_records_reco_uniqueid_seq'::regclass) Indici: "ts_i_records_0" btree (item_uniqueid) "ts_i_records_1" btree (reco_uniqueid) "ts_i_records_2" btree (reco_isactive, reco_effectiv) "ts_i_records_3" btree (reco_alphanum) "ts_i_records_4" btree (fiel_uniqueid) ----| /PSQL |---- And these are the EXPLAINs for the queries: ----| PSQL |---- noa=# EXPLAIN SELECT * FROM ts_t_records WHERE fiel_uniqueid=2 AND reco_alphanum='TEST' AND reco_isactive AND reco_effectiv<=NOW(); QUERY PLAN ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bitmap Heap Scan on ts_t_records (cost=5110.50..6191.86 rows=277 width=65) Recheck Cond: ((reco_alphanum = 'TEST'::text) AND (fiel_uniqueid = 2)) Filter: (reco_isactive AND (reco_effectiv <= now())) -> BitmapAnd (cost=5110.50..5110.50 rows=277 width=0) -> Bitmap Index Scan on ts_i_records_3 (cost=0.00..36.32 rows=5234 width=0) Index Cond: (reco_alphanum = 'TEST'::text) -> Bitmap Index Scan on ts_irecords_4 (cost=0.00..5073.93 rows=812550 width=0) Index Cond: (fiel_uniqueid = 2) (8 righe) noa=# EXPLAIN SELECT * FROM ts_t_records WHERE fiel_uniqueid=2 AND reco_alphanum LIKE 'TEST%' AND reco_isactive AND reco_effectiv<=NOW(); QUERY PLAN --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Index Scan using ts_i_records_3 on ts_t_records (cost=0.00..6.01 rows=1 width=65) Index Cond: ((reco_alphanum >= 'TEST'::text) AND (reco_alphanum < 'TESU'::text)) Filter: ((fiel_uniqueid = 2) AND (reco_alphanum ~~ 'TEST%'::text) AND reco_isactive AND (reco_effectiv <= now())) (3 righe) ----| /PSQL |---- Not only are query plans very different, but the equality query is much worse than the pattern matching one. In my (maybe wrong) mind I expected the reverse. What's wrong with the my expectations? Am I missing something? MTIA. -- Vincenzo Romano ---- Maybe Computers will never become as intelligent as Humans. For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1987]