Re: FK Constraints, indexes and performance

ow  writes:
> It's understood that FK constraints carry some performance hit. However, the
> performance hit I observe is huge.

It looks to me like the 7.3 planner will not choose indexscans for the FK
check queries in this example, because the comparison operators are
misconstrued as shown in this thread:
http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-hackers/2003-03/msg00997.php
The equality operator on your domain is taken to be "oideq" which won't
be the same operator associated with the index on the column.

This seems to be fixed in 7.4.  In 7.3 I'd counsel not introducing
domains unnecessarily.
		regards, tom lane