On Tue, 2010-02-09 at 17:38 -0500, Tom Lane wrote: > The results certainly ought to be the same (although perhaps not with > the same ordering) --- if they aren't, please provide a reproducible > test case. The results are the same, this is not a problem. > As for efficiency, though, 8.1 didn't understand how to use hash > aggregation for DISTINCT. Less-obsolete versions do know how to do > that. Indeed, this seem to be the issue: tts_server_db=# EXPLAIN ANALYZE select userdata from tagrecord where clientRmaInId = 'CPC-RMA-00110' group by userdata; QUERY PLAN ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ HashAggregate (cost=253.34..253.50 rows=16 width=15) (actual time=0.094..0.094 rows=0 loops=1) -> Index Scan using idx_tagdata_clientrmainid on tagrecord (cost=0.00..252.85 rows=195 width=15) (actual time=0.091..0.091 rows=0 loops=1) Index Cond: ((clientrmainid)::text = 'CPC-RMA-00110'::text) Total runtime: 0.146 ms (4 rows) tts_server_db=# EXPLAIN ANALYZE select distinct userdata from tagrecord where clientRmaInId = 'CPC-RMA-00110'; QUERY PLAN ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Unique (cost=260.27..261.25 rows=16 width=15) (actual time=0.115..0.115 rows=0 loops=1) -> Sort (cost=260.27..260.76 rows=195 width=15) (actual time=0.113..0.113 rows=0 loops=1) Sort Key: userdata -> Index Scan using idx_tagdata_clientrmainid on tagrecord (cost=0.00..252.85 rows=195 width=15) (actual time=0.105..0.105 rows=0 loops=1) Index Cond: ((clientrmainid)::text = 'CPC-RMA-00110'::text) Total runtime: 0.151 ms (6 rows) For now we are stuck with 8.1, so the easiest fix for us is to use GROUP BY. Since this is fixed in later versions, I guess there's not much to see here... :) Thanks for the quick reply! -- Dimi Paun <dimi@xxxxxxxxxxx> Lattica, Inc. -- Sent via pgsql-performance mailing list (pgsql-performance@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-performance