maria-developers team mailing list archive

[worklog-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxx]

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
                              WORKLOG TASK
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
TASK...........: Table elimination
CREATION DATE..: Sun, 10 May 2009, 19:57
SUPERVISOR.....: Monty
IMPLEMENTOR....: Psergey
COPIES TO......: 
CATEGORY.......: Server-Sprint
TASK ID........: 17 (http://askmonty.org/worklog/?tid=17)
VERSION........: Server-5.1
STATUS.........: Assigned
PRIORITY.......: 60
WORKED HOURS...: 0
ESTIMATE.......: 0 (hours remain)
ORIG. ESTIMATE.: 0

PROGRESS NOTES:

-=-=(Guest - Thu, 18 Jun 2009, 02:24)=-=-
Low Level Design modified.
--- /tmp/wklog.17.old.27162     2009-06-18 02:24:14.000000000 +0300
+++ /tmp/wklog.17.new.27162     2009-06-18 02:24:14.000000000 +0300
@@ -83,9 +83,12 @@
 
 5. Tests and benchmarks
 -----------------------
-Should create a benchmark in sql-bench which checks if the dbms has table
+Create a benchmark in sql-bench which checks if the DBMS has table
 elimination.
-TODO elaborate
+[According to Monty] Run
+ - queries that would use elimination
+ - queries that are very similar to one above (so that they would have same
+   QEP, execution cost, etc) but cannot use table elimination.
 
 6. Todo, issues to resolve
 --------------------------
@@ -109,33 +112,37 @@
 
 6.2 Resolved
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~
-- outer->inner join conversion is not a problem for table elimination. 
+* outer->inner join conversion is not a problem for table elimination. 
   We make outer->inner conversions based on predicates in WHERE. If the WHERE
   referred to an inner table (requirement for OJ->IJ conversion) then table
   elimination would not be applicable anyway.
 
-7. Additional issues
---------------------
-* We remove ON clauses within semi-join nests. If these clauses contain
-  subqueries, they probably should be gone from EXPLAIN output also?
+* For Multi-table UPDATEs/DELETEs, need to also analyze the SET clause:
+  - affected tables must not be eliminated
+  - tables that are used on the right side of the SET x=y assignments must 
+    not be eliminated either.
 
-* Aggregate functions report they depend on all tables, that is,
+* Aggregate functions used to report that they depend on all tables, that is,
    
      item_agg_func->used_tables() == (1ULL << join->tables) - 1
 
-  always. If we want table elimination to work in presence of grouping, need 
-  to devise some other way of analyzing aggregate functions.
+  always. Fixed it, now aggregate function reports it depends on
+  tables that its arguments depend on. In particular, COUNT(*) reports
+  that it depends on no tables (item_count_star->used_tables()==0). 
+  One consequence of that is that "item->used_tables()==0" is not 
+  equivalent to "item->const_item()==true" anymore (not sure if it's 
+  "anymore" or this has been already happening). 
+
+* EXPLAIN EXTENDED warning text was generated after the JOIN object has
+  been discarded. This didn't allow to use information about join plan 
+  when printing the warning. Fixed this by keeping the JOIN objects until 
+  we've printed the warning  (have also an intent to remove the const
+  tables from the join output).
 
-* Should eliminated tables be shown in EXPLAIN EXTENDED? 
-  - If we just ignore the question, they will be shown
-    - this is what happens for constant tables, too.
-  - I don't see how showing them could be of any use. They only make it 
-    harder to read the rewritten query.
-  It turns out that
-  - it is easy to have EXPLAIN EXTENDED show permanent (once-per-statement
-    lifetime) changes.
-  - it is hard to have it show per-execution data. This is because the warning
-    text is generated after the execution structures have been destroyed. 
+7. Additional issues
+--------------------
+* We remove ON clauses within semi-join nests. If these clauses contain
+  subqueries, they probably should be gone from EXPLAIN output also?
 
 * Table elimination is performed after constant table detection (but before
   the range analysis). Constant tables are technically different from 
@@ -143,8 +150,6 @@
   Considering we've already done the join_read_const_table() call, is there any
   real difference between constant table and eliminated one? If there is, should
   we mark const tables also as eliminated?
+  from user/EXPLAIN point of view: no. constant table is the one that we read
+  one record from. eliminated table is the one that we don't acccess at all.
 
-* For Multi-table UPDATEs/DELETEs, need to also analyze the SET clause:
-  - affected tables must not be eliminated
-  - tables that are used on the right side of the SET x=y assignments must 
-    not be eliminated either.

-=-=(Guest - Tue, 16 Jun 2009, 17:01)=-=-
Dependency deleted: 29 no longer depends on 17

-=-=(Guest - Wed, 10 Jun 2009, 01:23)=-=-
Low Level Design modified.
--- /tmp/wklog.17.old.1842      2009-06-10 01:23:42.000000000 +0300
+++ /tmp/wklog.17.new.1842      2009-06-10 01:23:42.000000000 +0300
@@ -131,6 +131,11 @@
     - this is what happens for constant tables, too.
   - I don't see how showing them could be of any use. They only make it 
     harder to read the rewritten query.
+  It turns out that
+  - it is easy to have EXPLAIN EXTENDED show permanent (once-per-statement
+    lifetime) changes.
+  - it is hard to have it show per-execution data. This is because the warning
+    text is generated after the execution structures have been destroyed. 
 
 * Table elimination is performed after constant table detection (but before
   the range analysis). Constant tables are technically different from 

-=-=(Guest - Wed, 03 Jun 2009, 22:01)=-=-
Low Level Design modified.
--- /tmp/wklog.17.old.21801     2009-06-03 22:01:34.000000000 +0300
+++ /tmp/wklog.17.new.21801     2009-06-03 22:01:34.000000000 +0300
@@ -1,3 +1,6 @@
+The code (currently in development) is at lp:
+~maria-captains/maria/maria-5.1-table-elimination tree.
+
 <contents>
 1. Conditions for removal
 1.1 Quick check if there are candidates

-=-=(Guest - Wed, 03 Jun 2009, 15:04)=-=-
Low Level Design modified.
--- /tmp/wklog.17.old.20378     2009-06-03 15:04:54.000000000 +0300
+++ /tmp/wklog.17.new.20378     2009-06-03 15:04:54.000000000 +0300
@@ -135,3 +135,8 @@
   Considering we've already done the join_read_const_table() call, is there any
   real difference between constant table and eliminated one? If there is, should
   we mark const tables also as eliminated?
+
+* For Multi-table UPDATEs/DELETEs, need to also analyze the SET clause:
+  - affected tables must not be eliminated
+  - tables that are used on the right side of the SET x=y assignments must 
+    not be eliminated either.

-=-=(Psergey - Wed, 03 Jun 2009, 12:07)=-=-
Dependency created: 29 now depends on 17

-=-=(Guest - Tue, 02 Jun 2009, 00:54)=-=-
Low Level Design modified.
--- /tmp/wklog.17.old.23548     2009-06-02 00:54:13.000000000 +0300
+++ /tmp/wklog.17.new.23548     2009-06-02 00:54:13.000000000 +0300
@@ -128,3 +128,10 @@
     - this is what happens for constant tables, too.
   - I don't see how showing them could be of any use. They only make it 
     harder to read the rewritten query.
+
+* Table elimination is performed after constant table detection (but before
+  the range analysis). Constant tables are technically different from 
+  eliminated ones (e.g. the former are shown in EXPLAIN and the latter aren't).
+  Considering we've already done the join_read_const_table() call, is there any
+  real difference between constant table and eliminated one? If there is, should
+  we mark const tables also as eliminated?

-=-=(Psergey - Mon, 01 Jun 2009, 20:46)=-=-
Low Level Design modified.
--- /tmp/wklog.17.old.17448     2009-06-01 20:46:40.000000000 +0300
+++ /tmp/wklog.17.new.17448     2009-06-01 20:46:40.000000000 +0300
@@ -122,3 +122,9 @@
 
   always. If we want table elimination to work in presence of grouping, need 
   to devise some other way of analyzing aggregate functions.
+
+* Should eliminated tables be shown in EXPLAIN EXTENDED? 
+  - If we just ignore the question, they will be shown
+    - this is what happens for constant tables, too.
+  - I don't see how showing them could be of any use. They only make it 
+    harder to read the rewritten query.

-=-=(Guest - Mon, 01 Jun 2009, 12:49)=-=-
Low Level Design modified.
--- /tmp/wklog.17.old.32202     2009-06-01 12:49:15.000000000 +0300
+++ /tmp/wklog.17.new.32202     2009-06-01 12:49:15.000000000 +0300
@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
 6. Todo, issues to resolve
 6.1 To resolve
 6.2 Resolved
-
+7. Additional issues
 </contents>
 
 It's not really about elimination of tables, it's about elimination of inner
@@ -116,3 +116,9 @@
 * We remove ON clauses within semi-join nests. If these clauses contain
   subqueries, they probably should be gone from EXPLAIN output also?
 
+* Aggregate functions report they depend on all tables, that is,
+   
+     item_agg_func->used_tables() == (1ULL << join->tables) - 1
+
+  always. If we want table elimination to work in presence of grouping, need 
+  to devise some other way of analyzing aggregate functions.

-=-=(Guest - Fri, 29 May 2009, 00:45)=-=-
Low Level Design modified.
--- /tmp/wklog.17.old.1348      2009-05-29 00:45:21.000000000 +0300
+++ /tmp/wklog.17.new.1348      2009-05-29 00:45:21.000000000 +0300
@@ -111,3 +111,8 @@
   referred to an inner table (requirement for OJ->IJ conversion) then table
   elimination would not be applicable anyway.
 
+7. Additional issues
+--------------------
+* We remove ON clauses within semi-join nests. If these clauses contain
+  subqueries, they probably should be gone from EXPLAIN output also?
+

	------------------------------------------------------------

		-=-=(View All Progress Notes, 24 total)=-=-
	http://askmonty.org/worklog/index.pl?tid=17&nolimit=1


DESCRIPTION:

Eliminate not needed tables from SELECT queries..
This will speed up some views and automatically generated queries.

Example:

CREATE TABLE B (id int primary key);

select
 A.colA
from
 tableA A
left outer join
 tableB B
on
 B.id = A.id;

In this case we can remove table B and the join from the query.


HIGH-LEVEL SPECIFICATION:



Here is an extended explanation of table elimination.

Table elimination is a feature found in some modern query optimizers, of
which Microsoft SQL Server 2005/2008 seems to have the most advanced
implementation. Oracle 11g has also been confirmed to use table
elimination but not to the same extent.

Basically, what table elimination does, is to remove tables from the
execution plan when it is unnecessary to include them. This can, of
course, only happen if the right circumstances arise. Let us for example
look at the following query:

select
 A.colA
from
 tableA A
left outer join
 tableB B
on
 B.id = A.id;

When using A as the left table we ensure that the query will return at
least as many rows as there are in that table. For rows where the join
condition (B.id = A.id) is not met the selected column (A.colA) will
still contain it's original value. The not seen B.* row would contain all NULL:s.

However, the result set could actually contain more rows than what is
found in tableA if there are duplicates of the column B.id in tableB. If
A contains a row [1, "val1"] and B the rows [1, "other1a"],[1, "other1b"]
then two rows will match in the join condition. The only way to know
what the result will look like is to actually touch both tables during
execution.

Instead, let's say that tableB contains rows that make it possible to
place a unique constraint on the column B.id, for example and often the
case a primary key. In this situation we know that we will get exactly
as many rows as there are in tableA, since joining with tableB cannot
introduce any duplicates. If further, as in the example query, we do not
select any columns from tableB, touching that table during execution is
unnecessary. We can remove the whole join operation from the execution
plan.

Both SQL Server 2005/2008 and Oracle 11g will deploy table elimination
in the case described above. Let us look at a more advanced query, where
Oracle fails.

select
 A.colA
from
 tableA A
left outer join
 tableB B
on
 B.id = A.id
and
 B.fromDate = (
   select
     max(sub.fromDate)
   from
     tableB sub
   where
     sub.id = A.id
 );

In this example we have added another join condition, which ensures
that we only pick the matching row from tableB having the latest
fromDate. In this case tableB will contain duplicates of the column
B.id, so in order to ensure uniqueness the primary key has to contain
the fromDate column as well. In other words the primary key of tableB
is (B.id, B.fromDate).

Furthermore, since the subselect ensures that we only pick the latest
B.fromDate for a given B.id we know that at most one row will match
the join condition. We will again have the situation where joining
with tableB cannot affect the number of rows in the result set. Since
we do not select any columns from tableB, the whole join operation can
be eliminated from the execution plan.

SQL Server 2005/2008 will deploy table elimination in this situation as
well. We have not found a way to make Oracle 11g use it for this type of
query. Queries like these arise in two situations. Either when you have
denormalized model consisting of a fact table with several related
dimension tables, or when you have a highly normalized model where each
attribute is stored in its own table. The example with the subselect is
common whenever you store historized/versioned data.


LOW-LEVEL DESIGN:



The code (currently in development) is at lp:
~maria-captains/maria/maria-5.1-table-elimination tree.

<contents>
1. Conditions for removal
1.1 Quick check if there are candidates
2. Removal operation properties
3. Removal operation
4. User interface
5. Tests and benchmarks
6. Todo, issues to resolve
6.1 To resolve
6.2 Resolved
7. Additional issues
</contents>

It's not really about elimination of tables, it's about elimination of inner
sides of outer joins.

1. Conditions for removal
-------------------------
We can eliminate an inner side of outer join if:
1. For each record combination of outer tables, it will always produce
   exactly one record.
2. There are no references to columns of the inner tables anywhere else in
   the query.

#1 means that every table inside the outer join nest is:
 - is a constant table:
    = because it can be accessed via eq_ref(const) access, or
    = it is a zero-rows or one-row MyISAM-like table  [MARK1]
 - has an eq_ref access method candidate.

#2 means that WHERE clause, ON clauses of embedding outer joins, ORDER BY,
  GROUP BY and HAVING do not refer to the inner tables of the outer join
  nest.

1.1 Quick check if there are candidates
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Before we start to enumerate join nests, here is a quick way to check if
there *can be* something to be removed:

  if ((tables used in select_list |  
       tables used in group/order by UNION |
       tables used in where) != bitmap_of_all_tables)
  {
     attempt table elimination;
  }

2. Removal operation properties
-------------------------------
* There is always one way to remove (no choice to remove either this or that)
* It is always better to remove as much tables as possible (at least within 
  our cost model).
Thus, no need for any cost calculations/etc. It's an unconditional rewrite.

3. Removal operation
--------------------
* Remove the outer join nest's nested join structure (i.e. get the
  outer join's TABLE_LIST object $OJ and remove it from $OJ->embedding,
  $OJ->embedding->nested_join. Update table_map's of all ancestor nested
  joins).  [MARK2]

* Move the tables and their JOIN_TABs to front like it is done with const
  tables, with exception that if eliminated outer join nest was within
  another outer join nest, that shouldn't prevent us from moving away the
  eliminated tables. 

* Update join->table_count and all-join-tables bitmap.

* That's it. Nothing else?

4. User interface
-----------------
* We'll add an @@optimizer switch flag for table elimination. Tentative
  name: 'table_elimination'.
  (Note ^^ utility of the above questioned ^, as table elimination can never 
   be worse than no elimination. We're leaning towards not adding the flag)

* EXPLAIN will not show the removed tables at all. This will allow to check
  if tables were removed, and also will behave nicely with anchor model and
  VIEWs: stuff that user doesn't care about just won't be there.

5. Tests and benchmarks
-----------------------
Create a benchmark in sql-bench which checks if the DBMS has table
elimination.
[According to Monty] Run
 - queries that would use elimination
 - queries that are very similar to one above (so that they would have same
   QEP, execution cost, etc) but cannot use table elimination.

6. Todo, issues to resolve
--------------------------

6.1 To resolve
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Re-check how this works with equality propagation.

- Relationship with prepared statements. 
  On one hand, it's natural to desire to make table elimination a
  once-per-statement operation, like outer->inner join conversion. We'll have
  to limit the applicability by removing [MARK1] as that can change during
  lifetime of the statement.

  The other option is to do table elimination every time. This will require to
  rework operation [MARK2] to be undoable.
  
  I'm leaning towards doing the former. With anchor modeling, it is unlikely
  that we'll meet outer joins which have N inner tables of which some are 1-row
  MyISAM tables that do not have primary key.

6.2 Resolved
~~~~~~~~~~~~
* outer->inner join conversion is not a problem for table elimination. 
  We make outer->inner conversions based on predicates in WHERE. If the WHERE
  referred to an inner table (requirement for OJ->IJ conversion) then table
  elimination would not be applicable anyway.

* For Multi-table UPDATEs/DELETEs, need to also analyze the SET clause:
  - affected tables must not be eliminated
  - tables that are used on the right side of the SET x=y assignments must 
    not be eliminated either.

* Aggregate functions used to report that they depend on all tables, that is,
   
     item_agg_func->used_tables() == (1ULL << join->tables) - 1

  always. Fixed it, now aggregate function reports it depends on
  tables that its arguments depend on. In particular, COUNT(*) reports
  that it depends on no tables (item_count_star->used_tables()==0). 
  One consequence of that is that "item->used_tables()==0" is not 
  equivalent to "item->const_item()==true" anymore (not sure if it's 
  "anymore" or this has been already happening). 

* EXPLAIN EXTENDED warning text was generated after the JOIN object has
  been discarded. This didn't allow to use information about join plan 
  when printing the warning. Fixed this by keeping the JOIN objects until 
  we've printed the warning  (have also an intent to remove the const
  tables from the join output).
 
7. Additional issues
--------------------
* We remove ON clauses within semi-join nests. If these clauses contain
  subqueries, they probably should be gone from EXPLAIN output also?

* Table elimination is performed after constant table detection (but before
  the range analysis). Constant tables are technically different from 
  eliminated ones (e.g. the former are shown in EXPLAIN and the latter aren't).
  Considering we've already done the join_read_const_table() call, is there any
  real difference between constant table and eliminated one? If there is, should
  we mark const tables also as eliminated?
  from user/EXPLAIN point of view: no. constant table is the one that we read
  one record from. eliminated table is the one that we don't acccess at all.
 


ESTIMATED WORK TIME

ESTIMATED COMPLETION DATE
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
WorkLog (v3.5.9)