Mysql indexes
From wikinotes
Indexes use various datastructures to store data to prevent full scans of all rows in the table.
Index Types
Index
A regular index, on a single column. Defaults to BTREE.
Multi-Column Index
A multi-column index is a regular index,
where the values of multiple columns are concatenated together to form one string.The order of the columns is significant,
but there are debates over the optimal ordering.- (specific -> unspecfic) will create a larger (on disk) tree, since there will be duplicates of the unspecific entries - (unspecific -> specific) TBD
Index Datastructure Types
Show the current index using
SHOW INDEX FROM foo_table;BTree
A binary tree. Default for persisted storage engines.
Optimize Queries that are
- sorted - match on field prefixes (but not suffixes) - range bound (less than 10, between C and F)But not queries
- match on field suffixesHash
A hash table. Default for the memory engine.
hash-collisions are accounted for, but each key with the same hash will need to be checked, making the query more expensive.
Indexes have a small memory footprint.Optimize queries that are
- based on the full value (ex. 'IN, NOT IN, =')But not queries that
- match on only a single key from a multi-key index (since both keys are hashed together) - are range bound. (ex. less than 10, betweeen C and F) (hash-tables are un-ordered, so range queries are not optimized)