Re: text_pattern_ops index not being used for prefix query

[Maxim Boguk <maxim.boguk@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, Oct 21, 2016 at 8:42 AM, Alexander Staubo <alex@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Indexing on a text column:

    create index index_documents_on_id_with_pattern_ops (id text_pattern_ops);

This works fine:

    > explain select id from documents where id like 'dingbat%';
    Index Only Scan using index_documents_on_id_with_pattern_ops on documents  (cost=0.56..8.58 rows=736 width=19)
      Index Cond: ((id >= 'dingbat'::text) AND (id < 'dingbau'::text))
      Filter: (id ~~ 'dingbat%'::text)

But for some reason, if an underscore character appears in my search string, it falls back to a disasterously slow seqscan:

    > explain select id from documents where id like '_dingbat%';
    Seq Scan on documents  (cost=0.00..779238.28 rows=736 width=19)
      Filter: (id ~~ '_dingbat%'::text)

Is this because of PostgreSQL’s collation system? Using “C” doesn’t work either.



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​Underscore in like pattern have a special meaning of "any symbol".

From documentation on the https://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.4/static/functions-matching.html :
"An underscore (_) in pattern stands for (matches) any single character;"
This could be useful as well: "To match a literal underscore or percent sign without matching other characters, the respective character in pattern must be preceded by the escape character."

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Maxim Boguk
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