Re: Bitmap Heap Scan anomaly

Jeff Davis <pgsql@j-davis.com> writes:
> On Thu, 2007-05-03 at 14:33 -0700, jaba the mobzy wrote:
>> mycorr_100 took 11.4 s to run although it had to fetch 100000 row from
>> the base table.
>> mycorr_10 took 24.4 s to run although it had to fetch 10563 row from
>> the base table.

> This is because the physical distribution of data is different. The
> mycorr_10 table has tuples in which a and b are > 15.9M spread all
> throughout. mycorr_100 has them all collected together at the end of the
> physical file. Less disk seeking.

If the OP had generated the data randomly, as claimed, the rows
shouldn't be particularly more clumped in one table than the other.
But I sure agree that it sounds like a nonrandom distribution in the
mycorr_100 table.  FWIW I tried to duplicate the behavior, and could
not, using tables made up like this:

create table src as
select int4(16*1024*1024*random()) as key,
int4(16*1024*1024*random()) as a,
int4(16*1024*1024*random()) as b
from generate_series(1,16*1024*1024);

create table mycorr_10 as
select key, a,
case when random() < 0.1 then a else b end as b
from src;

create table mycorr_100 as
select key, a, a as b
from src;

create index mycorr_10i on mycorr_10(a,b);

create index mycorr_100i on mycorr_100(a,b);

vacuum analyze mycorr_10;

vacuum analyze mycorr_100;
        regards, tom lane