Consider Table Expressions to Improve Performance

Table expressions are frequently overlooked as a potential solution for resolving problems using only SQL. Table expressions can be used to force the optimizer to choose a specific processing order.

For example, consider the following query:

SELECT D.DEPTNO,
MIN(D.DEPTNAME) AS DEPT_NAME,
MIN(D.LOCATION) AS DEPT_LOCATION,
SUM(E.SALARY) AS TOTAL_SALARY
FROM   DEPT D,
EMP E
WHERE D.DEPTNO = E.WORKDEPT
AND   E.BONUS BETWEEN 0.00 AND 1000.00
GROUP BY D.DEPTNO;

In this query, the detail rows that qualify from each table are joined prior to the GROUP BY processing. In general, there will be more EMP rows than DEPT rows because a department comprises multiple employees. Suppose there were 200 DEPT rows joined to 75,000 EMP rows. The join is done and then the GROUP BY is processed.

Instead, you can use table expressions to force the optimizer to process the aggregations on a table-by-table basis:

SELECT D.DEPTNO,
D.DEPTNAME,
D.LOCATION,
E.TOTAL_SALARY
FROM   DEPT D,
(SELECT WORKDEPT, SUM(SALARY) AS TOTAL_SALARY
FROM EMP E
WHERE E.BONUS BETWEEN 0.00 and 1000.00
GROUP BY E.WORKDEPT) AS E
WHERE D.DEPTNO = E.WORKDEPT;

This will produce the same results but it should perform better.

Instead of coding the table expression in the FROM clause, you can code a WITH clause and refer to the expression by a name. This allows you to reference the expression multiple times in the query without having to type the entire expression each time. Here is a re-working of the previous query using this method:

WITH CEMP (WORKDEPT, TOTAL_SALARY) AS
(
SELECT WORKDEPT, SUM(SALARY)
FROM EMP
WHERE E.BONUS BETWEEN 0.00 and 1000.00
GROUP BY E.WORKDEPT
)
SELECT D.DEPTNO,
D.DEPTNAME,
D.LOCATION,
E.TOTAL_SALARY
FROM   DEPT D,
CEMP E
WHERE D.DEPTNO = E.WORKDEPT;

This is referred to as a common table expression, or CTE.

In general, consider using table expressions to pre-filter FULL JOIN tables, to pre-filter null supplying tables of LEFT/RIGHT joins, to separate GROUP BY work, and to generate or derive data.

This blog was originally published on Craig Mullins’ blog at: http://db2portal.blogspot.com/2008/04/consider-table-expressions-to-improve.html