Re: Forcing filter/join order?

Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com> writes:
> Knowing that events are never more than one month long for this
> application, I can do:

> "WHERE event.event_date >= (begin_date - '1 month) AND event.event_date <=
> end_date"

> ... which works because I have a child table which has event information by
> day:

Uh, why do you need the child table?  Seems like the correct incantation
given an assumption about maximum duration is

event_date <= 'end-date' AND (event_date + duration) >= 'start-date'
AND event_date >= 'start-date' - 'max-duration'

The last clause is redundant with the one involving the duration field,
but it provides a lower bound for the index scan on event_date.  The
only index you really need here is one on event_date, but possibly one
on (event_date, (event_date + duration)) would be marginally faster.

            regards, tom lane