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Old 04-19-2008, 11:38 AM
Ben
 
Posts: n/a
Default quickly getting the top N rows

If I have this:

create table foo (bar int primary key);

....then in my ideal world, Postgres would be able to use that index on bar
to help me with this:

select bar from foo order by bar desc limit 20;

But in my experience, PG8.2 is doing a full table scan on foo, then
sorting it, then doing the limit. I have a more complex primary key, but I
was hoping the same concept would still apply. Am I doing something wrong,
or just expecting something that doesn't exist?

---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
TIP 9: In versions below 8.0, the planner will ignore your desire to
choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not
match

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