On Wed, 2006-02-15 at 20:00 +0000, Gary Doades wrote:
> I have put together a test case that demonstrates the problem (see
> below). I create a simple table, as close in structure to one of my
> problem tables and populate an integer column with 100,000 zeros follow
> by 100,000 random integers between 0 and 100,000. Then create an index
> on this column. I then drop the table and repeat. The create index
> should take around 1-2 seconds. A fair proportion of the time it takes
> 50 seconds!!!
>
> If I fill the same row with all random data the create index always
> takes a second or two. If I fill the column with all zeros everything is
> still OK.
Aside from the importance of investigating sort behaviour, have you
tried to build a partial index WHERE col > 0 ? That way you wouldn't
even be indexing the zeros.
Best Regards, Simon Riggs