How to find mostly accessed/used tables in Postgresql database? - postgresql

How to find mostly accessed and used tables in Postgresql database?

most often reads:
select schemaname,relname,seq_scan,idx_scan
from pg_stat_all_tables
order by coalesce(seq_scan,0)+coalesce(idx_scan,0) desc
limit 5;
same can be done for inserts n_tup_ins, updates n_tup_upd,n_tup_hot_upd and deltes: n_tup_del.
or most accessed in general by summaryzing them all, like order by coalesce(seq_scan,0)+coalesce(idx_scan,0)+coalesce(n_tup_ins,0) + ... etc

Depends on how you count “accesed and used”.
If the number of index and sequential scans is a good measure for you, you could use:
SELECT schemaname, relname,
COALESCE(seq_scan, 0) + COALESCE(idx_scan, 0) nr_accesses
FROM pg_stat_all_tables
ORDER BY 3 DESC NULLS LAST;
Alternatively, you could use seq_tup_read + idx_tup_fetch if the number of accessed rows is a better measure for you.

Related

Can't count() a PostgreSql table [duplicate]

I need to know the number of rows in a table to calculate a percentage. If the total count is greater than some predefined constant, I will use the constant value. Otherwise, I will use the actual number of rows.
I can use SELECT count(*) FROM table. But if my constant value is 500,000 and I have 5,000,000,000 rows in my table, counting all rows will waste a lot of time.
Is it possible to stop counting as soon as my constant value is surpassed?
I need the exact number of rows only as long as it's below the given limit. Otherwise, if the count is above the limit, I use the limit value instead and want the answer as fast as possible.
Something like this:
SELECT text,count(*), percentual_calculus()
FROM token
GROUP BY text
ORDER BY count DESC;
Counting rows in big tables is known to be slow in PostgreSQL. The MVCC model requires a full count of live rows for a precise number. There are workarounds to speed this up dramatically if the count does not have to be exact like it seems to be in your case.
(Remember that even an "exact" count is potentially dead on arrival under concurrent write load.)
Exact count
Slow for big tables.
With concurrent write operations, it may be outdated the moment you get it.
SELECT count(*) AS exact_count FROM myschema.mytable;
Estimate
Extremely fast:
SELECT reltuples AS estimate FROM pg_class where relname = 'mytable';
Typically, the estimate is very close. How close, depends on whether ANALYZE or VACUUM are run enough - where "enough" is defined by the level of write activity to your table.
Safer estimate
The above ignores the possibility of multiple tables with the same name in one database - in different schemas. To account for that:
SELECT c.reltuples::bigint AS estimate
FROM pg_class c
JOIN pg_namespace n ON n.oid = c.relnamespace
WHERE c.relname = 'mytable'
AND n.nspname = 'myschema';
The cast to bigint formats the real number nicely, especially for big counts.
Better estimate
SELECT reltuples::bigint AS estimate
FROM pg_class
WHERE oid = 'myschema.mytable'::regclass;
Faster, simpler, safer, more elegant. See the manual on Object Identifier Types.
Replace 'myschema.mytable'::regclass with to_regclass('myschema.mytable') in Postgres 9.4+ to get nothing instead of an exception for invalid table names. See:
How to check if a table exists in a given schema
Better estimate yet (for very little added cost)
This does not work for partitioned tables because relpages is always -1 for the parent table (while reltuples contains an actual estimate covering all partitions) - tested in Postgres 14.
You have to add up estimates for all partitions instead.
We can do what the Postgres planner does. Quoting the Row Estimation Examples in the manual:
These numbers are current as of the last VACUUM or ANALYZE on the
table. The planner then fetches the actual current number of pages in
the table (this is a cheap operation, not requiring a table scan). If
that is different from relpages then reltuples is scaled
accordingly to arrive at a current number-of-rows estimate.
Postgres uses estimate_rel_size defined in src/backend/utils/adt/plancat.c, which also covers the corner case of no data in pg_class because the relation was never vacuumed. We can do something similar in SQL:
Minimal form
SELECT (reltuples / relpages * (pg_relation_size(oid) / 8192))::bigint
FROM pg_class
WHERE oid = 'mytable'::regclass; -- your table here
Safe and explicit
SELECT (CASE WHEN c.reltuples < 0 THEN NULL -- never vacuumed
WHEN c.relpages = 0 THEN float8 '0' -- empty table
ELSE c.reltuples / c.relpages END
* (pg_catalog.pg_relation_size(c.oid)
/ pg_catalog.current_setting('block_size')::int)
)::bigint
FROM pg_catalog.pg_class c
WHERE c.oid = 'myschema.mytable'::regclass; -- schema-qualified table here
Doesn't break with empty tables and tables that have never seen VACUUM or ANALYZE. The manual on pg_class:
If the table has never yet been vacuumed or analyzed, reltuples contains -1 indicating that the row count is unknown.
If this query returns NULL, run ANALYZE or VACUUM for the table and repeat. (Alternatively, you could estimate row width based on column types like Postgres does, but that's tedious and error-prone.)
If this query returns 0, the table seems to be empty. But I would ANALYZE to make sure. (And maybe check your autovacuum settings.)
Typically, block_size is 8192. current_setting('block_size')::int covers rare exceptions.
Table and schema qualifications make it immune to any search_path and scope.
Either way, the query consistently takes < 0.1 ms for me.
More Web resources:
The Postgres Wiki FAQ
The Postgres wiki pages for count estimates and count(*) performance
TABLESAMPLE SYSTEM (n) in Postgres 9.5+
SELECT 100 * count(*) AS estimate FROM mytable TABLESAMPLE SYSTEM (1);
Like #a_horse commented, the added clause for the SELECT command can be useful if statistics in pg_class are not current enough for some reason. For example:
No autovacuum running.
Immediately after a large INSERT / UPDATE / DELETE.
TEMPORARY tables (which are not covered by autovacuum).
This only looks at a random n % (1 in the example) selection of blocks and counts rows in it. A bigger sample increases the cost and reduces the error, your pick. Accuracy depends on more factors:
Distribution of row size. If a given block happens to hold wider than usual rows, the count is lower than usual etc.
Dead tuples or a FILLFACTOR occupy space per block. If unevenly distributed across the table, the estimate may be off.
General rounding errors.
Typically, the estimate from pg_class will be faster and more accurate.
Answer to actual question
First, I need to know the number of rows in that table, if the total
count is greater than some predefined constant,
And whether it ...
... is possible at the moment the count pass my constant value, it will
stop the counting (and not wait to finish the counting to inform the
row count is greater).
Yes. You can use a subquery with LIMIT:
SELECT count(*) FROM (SELECT 1 FROM token LIMIT 500000) t;
Postgres actually stops counting beyond the given limit, you get an exact and current count for up to n rows (500000 in the example), and n otherwise. Not nearly as fast as the estimate in pg_class, though.
I did this once in a postgres app by running:
EXPLAIN SELECT * FROM foo;
Then examining the output with a regex, or similar logic. For a simple SELECT *, the first line of output should look something like this:
Seq Scan on uids (cost=0.00..1.21 rows=8 width=75)
You can use the rows=(\d+) value as a rough estimate of the number of rows that would be returned, then only do the actual SELECT COUNT(*) if the estimate is, say, less than 1.5x your threshold (or whatever number you deem makes sense for your application).
Depending on the complexity of your query, this number may become less and less accurate. In fact, in my application, as we added joins and complex conditions, it became so inaccurate it was completely worthless, even to know how within a power of 100 how many rows we'd have returned, so we had to abandon that strategy.
But if your query is simple enough that Pg can predict within some reasonable margin of error how many rows it will return, it may work for you.
Reference taken from this Blog.
You can use below to query to find row count.
Using pg_class:
SELECT reltuples::bigint AS EstimatedCount
FROM pg_class
WHERE oid = 'public.TableName'::regclass;
Using pg_stat_user_tables:
SELECT
schemaname
,relname
,n_live_tup AS EstimatedCount
FROM pg_stat_user_tables
ORDER BY n_live_tup DESC;
How wide is the text column?
With a GROUP BY there's not much you can do to avoid a data scan (at least an index scan).
I'd recommend:
If possible, changing the schema to remove duplication of text data. This way the count will happen on a narrow foreign key field in the 'many' table.
Alternatively, creating a generated column with a HASH of the text, then GROUP BY the hash column.
Again, this is to decrease the workload (scan through a narrow column index)
Edit:
Your original question did not quite match your edit. I'm not sure if you're aware that the COUNT, when used with a GROUP BY, will return the count of items per group and not the count of items in the entire table.
You can also just SELECT MAX(id) FROM <table_name>; change id to whatever the PK of the table is
In Oracle, you could use rownum to limit the number of rows returned. I am guessing similar construct exists in other SQLs as well. So, for the example you gave, you could limit the number of rows returned to 500001 and apply a count(*) then:
SELECT (case when cnt > 500000 then 500000 else cnt end) myCnt
FROM (SELECT count(*) cnt FROM table WHERE rownum<=500001)
For SQL Server (2005 or above) a quick and reliable method is:
SELECT SUM (row_count)
FROM sys.dm_db_partition_stats
WHERE object_id=OBJECT_ID('MyTableName')
AND (index_id=0 or index_id=1);
Details about sys.dm_db_partition_stats are explained in MSDN
The query adds rows from all parts of a (possibly) partitioned table.
index_id=0 is an unordered table (Heap) and index_id=1 is an ordered table (clustered index)
Even faster (but unreliable) methods are detailed here.

Fetching rows in DB2

I know in DB2 (using version 9.7) I can select the first 10 rows of a table by using this query:
SELECT *
FROM myTable
ORDER BY id
FETCH FIRST 10 ROWS ONLY
But how can I get, for example, rows 11 to 20?
I can't use the primary key or the ID to help me...
Thanks in advance!
Here's a sample query that will get rows from a table contain state names, abbreviations, etc.
SELECT *
FROM (
SELECT stabr, stname, ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY stname) AS rownumber
FROM states
WHERE stcnab = 'US'
) AS xxx
WHERE rownumber BETWEEN 11 AND 20 ORDER BY stname
Edit: ORDER BY is necessary to guarantee that the row numbering is consistent
between executions of the query.
You can also use the MYSQL compatibility. You just need to activate the vector compatibility for MYS, and then use Limit and Offset in your queries.
db2set DB2_COMPATIBILITY_VECTOR=MYS
db2stop
db2start
An excellent article written by DB2 experts from IBM https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/mydeveloperworks/blogs/SQLTips4DB2LUW/entry/limit_offset?lang=en
Compatibility vector in InfoCenter http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/db2luw/v10r1/topic/com.ibm.db2.luw.apdv.porting.doc/doc/r0052867.html
A blog about this http://victorsergienko.com/db2-supports-limit-and-offset/

PostgreSQL Aggregate groups with limit performance

I'm a newbie in PostgreSQL. Is there a way to improve execution time of the following query:
SELECT s.id, s.name, s.url,
(SELECT array_agg(p.url)
FROM (
SELECT url
FROM pages
WHERE site_id = s.id ORDER BY created DESC LIMIT 5
) as p
) as last_pages
FROM sites s
I havn't found how to insert LIMIT clause into aggregate call, as ordering.
There are indexes by created (timestamp) and site_id (integer) in table pages, but the foreign key from sites.id to pages.site_id is absent, unfortunately. The query is intented to return a list of sites with sublists of 5 most recently created pages.
PostgreSQL version is 9.1.5.
You need to start by thinking like the database management system. You also need to think very carefully about what you are asking from the database.
Your fundamental problem here is that you likely have a very large number of separate indexing calls happening here when a sequential scan may be quite a bit faster. Your current query gives very little flexibility to the planner because of the fact that you have subqueries which must be correlated.
A much better way to do this would be with a view (inline or not) and a window function:
SELECT s.id, s.name, s.url, array_agg(p.url)
FROM sites s
JOIN (select site_id, url,
row_number() OVER (partition by site_id order by created desc) as num
from pages) p on s.id = p.site_id
WHERE num <= 5;
This will likely change a very large number of index scans to a single large sequential scan.

way to reduce the cost in db2 for count(*)

Hi I had a DB2 Query as below
select count(*) as count from
table_a,
table_b,
table c
where
b.xxx=234 AND
b.yyy=c.wedf
Result SEt:
Count
618543562
For the above query i even tried with Count(1) but when i took the access plan, cost is same.
select count(1) as count from
table_a,
table_b,
table c
where
b.xxx=234 AND
b.yyy=c.wedf
Result SEt:
Count
618543562
Is there any other way to reduce the cost.
PS: b.xxx,b.yyy, c.wedf is indexed..
Thanks in advance.
I think one of the problem are statistics on the table. Did you execute Runstats? Probably, the data distribution or the quantity of rows that has to be read is a lot, and DB2 concludes that is better to read the whole table, instead of process an index, and then fetch the rows from the table.
It seems that both queries are taking the same access plan, and I think they are doing table scans.
Are the three columns part of the same index? or they are indexed separately? If they are part of different indexes, is there any ANDing between indexes in the access plan? If there is not ANDing with different indexes, the columns has to be read from the table in order to process the predicates.
The reason count(1) and count(*) are giving the same cost, is because both has to do a TableScan.
Please, take a look at the access plan, not only the results in timerons, but also the steps. Is the access plan taking the indexes? how many sorts is executing?
Try to change the optimization level, and you will see that the access plans change. I think you are executing with the default one (5)
If you want to force the query to take in account an index, you can create an optimization profile
What is the relation between (B,C) tables and A table. In your query you just use CROSS JOIN between A and (B,C). So it is the MAIN performance issue.
If you really need this count just multiply counts for A and (B,C):
select
(select count(*) from a)
*
(select count(*) from b, c where b.xxx=234 AND b.yyy=c.wedf )
for DB2 use this:
select a1.cnt*
(select count(*) as cnt2 from b, c where b.xxx=234 AND b.yyy=c.wedf )
from
(select count(*) as cnt1 from a) a1

Equivalent of LIMIT for DB2

How do you do LIMIT in DB2 for iSeries?
I have a table with more than 50,000 records and I want to return records 0 to 10,000, and records 10,000 to 20,000.
I know in SQL you write LIMIT 0,10000 at the end of the query for 0 to 10,000 and LIMIT 10000,10000 at the end of the query for 10000 to 20,000
So, how is this done in DB2? Whats the code and syntax?
(full query example is appreciated)
Using FETCH FIRST [n] ROWS ONLY:
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/dzichelp/v2r2/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.db29.doc.perf/db2z_fetchfirstnrows.htm
SELECT LASTNAME, FIRSTNAME, EMPNO, SALARY
FROM EMP
ORDER BY SALARY DESC
FETCH FIRST 20 ROWS ONLY;
To get ranges, you'd have to use ROW_NUMBER() (since v5r4) and use that within the WHERE clause: (stolen from here: http://www.justskins.com/forums/db2-select-how-to-123209.html)
SELECT code, name, address
FROM (
SELECT row_number() OVER ( ORDER BY code ) AS rid, code, name, address
FROM contacts
WHERE name LIKE '%Bob%'
) AS t
WHERE t.rid BETWEEN 20 AND 25;
Developed this method:
You NEED a table that has an unique value that can be ordered.
If you want rows 10,000 to 25,000 and your Table has 40,000 rows, first you need to get the starting point and total rows:
int start = 40000 - 10000;
int total = 25000 - 10000;
And then pass these by code to the query:
SELECT * FROM
(SELECT * FROM schema.mytable
ORDER BY userId DESC fetch first {start} rows only ) AS mini
ORDER BY mini.userId ASC fetch first {total} rows only
Support for OFFSET and LIMIT was recently added to DB2 for i 7.1 and 7.2. You need the following DB PTF group levels to get this support:
SF99702 level 9 for IBM i 7.2
SF99701 level 38 for IBM i 7.1
See here for more information: OFFSET and LIMIT documentation, DB2 for i Enhancement Wiki
Here's the solution I came up with:
select FIELD from TABLE where FIELD > LASTVAL order by FIELD fetch first N rows only;
By initializing LASTVAL to 0 (or '' for a text field), then setting it to the last value in the most recent set of records, this will step through the table in chunks of N records.
#elcool's solution is a smart idea, but you need to know total number of rows (which can even change while you are executing the query!). So I propose a modified version, which unfortunately needs 3 subqueries instead of 2:
select * from (
select * from (
select * from MYLIB.MYTABLE
order by MYID asc
fetch first {last} rows only
) I
order by MYID desc
fetch first {length} rows only
) II
order by MYID asc
where {last} should be replaced with row number of the last record I need and {length} should be replaced with the number of rows I need, calculated as last row - first row + 1.
E.g. if I want rows from 10 to 25 (totally 16 rows), {last} will be 25 and {length} will be 25-10+1=16.
Try this
SELECT * FROM
(
SELECT T.*, ROW_NUMBER() OVER() R FROM TABLE T
)
WHERE R BETWEEN 10000 AND 20000
The LIMIT clause allows you to limit the number of rows returned by the query. The LIMIT clause is an extension of the SELECT statement that has the following syntax:
SELECT select_list
FROM table_name
ORDER BY sort_expression
LIMIT n [OFFSET m];
In this syntax:
n is the number of rows to be returned.
m is the number of rows to skip before returning the n rows.
Another shorter version of LIMIT clause is as follows:
LIMIT m, n;
This syntax means skipping m rows and returning the next n rows from the result set.
A table may store rows in an unspecified order. If you don’t use the ORDER BY clause with the LIMIT clause, the returned rows are also unspecified. Therefore, it is a good practice to always use the ORDER BY clause with the LIMIT clause.
See Db2 LIMIT for more details.
You should also consider the OPTIMIZE FOR n ROWS clause. More details on all of this in the DB2 LUW documentation in the Guidelines for restricting SELECT statements topic:
The OPTIMIZE FOR clause declares the intent to retrieve only a subset of the result or to give priority to retrieving only the first few rows. The optimizer can then choose access plans that minimize the response time for retrieving the first few rows.
There are 2 solutions to paginate efficiently on a DB2 table :
1 - the technique using the function row_number() and the clause OVER which has been presented on another post ("SELECT row_number() OVER ( ORDER BY ... )"). On some big tables, I noticed sometimes a degradation of performances.
2 - the technique using a scrollable cursor. The implementation depends of the language used. That technique seems more robust on big tables.
I presented the 2 techniques implemented in PHP during a seminar next year. The slide is available on this link :
http://gregphplab.com/serendipity/uploads/slides/DB2_PHP_Best_practices.pdf
Sorry but this document is only in french.
Theres these available options:-
DB2 has several strategies to cope with this problem.
You can use the "scrollable cursor" in feature.
In this case you can open a cursor and, instead of re-issuing a query you can FETCH forward and backward.
This works great if your application can hold state since it doesn't require DB2 to rerun the query every time.
You can use the ROW_NUMBER() OLAP function to number rows and then return the subset you want.
This is ANSI SQL
You can use the ROWNUM pseudo columns which does the same as ROW_NUMBER() but is suitable if you have Oracle skills.
You can use LIMIT and OFFSET if you are more leaning to a mySQL or PostgreSQL dialect.