I am admittedly speaking up somewhat late here, and may be completely off base, but it seems to me that the "LIKE" operation is almost always going to be a loser, performance-wise, when there is an initial wildcard, e.g. "%superman re%" will require a sequential scan, while "superman re%" would not (assuming proper indexes matching case and type). I'd suggest tsearch2, possibly, which uses GIST indexes and may perhaps be a better match for this sort of problem. HTH, Greg Williamson DBA GlobeXplorer LLC -----Original Message----- From: pgsql-general-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx on behalf of Richard Huxton Sent: Thu 11/9/2006 1:22 AM To: Thomas H. Cc: pgsql-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: [GENERAL] planer picks a bad plan (seq-scan instead of index) Thomas H. wrote: > -------------------- > SELECT * FROM shop.dvds > LEFT JOIN oldtables.movies ON mov_id = dvd_mov_id > LEFT JOIN shop.data_soundmedia ON sm_info_ean = dvd_ean > WHERE (lower(mov_name) LIKE '%superman re%' OR lower(dvd_name) like > '%superman re%' OR lower(dvd_edition) LIKE '%superman re%') > -------------------- Try putting your conditions as part of the join: SELECT * FROM shop.dvds LEFT JOIN oldtables.movies ON mov_id = dvd_mov_id AND ( lower(mov_name) LIKE '%superman re%' OR lower(dvd_name) like '%superman re%' OR lower(dvd_edition) LIKE '%superman re%' ) LEFT JOIN shop.data_soundmedia ON sm_info_ean = dvd_ean I'd also be tempted to look at a tsearch2 setup for the word searches. -- Richard Huxton Archonet Ltd ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 9: In versions below 8.0, the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not match ------------------------------------------------------- Click link below if it is SPAM gsw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx "https://mailscanner.globexplorer.com/dspam/dspam.cgi?signatureID=4552efed289104295495211&user=gsw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx&retrain=spam&template=history&history_page=1" !DSPAM:4552efed289104295495211! -------------------------------------------------------