COUNT(id) or MAX(id) - which is faster?How to efficiently count the number of keys/properties of an object in...

Email Account under attack (really) - anything I can do?

"My colleague's body is amazing"

Why did the Germans forbid the possession of pet pigeons in Rostov-on-Don in 1941?

How to make payment on the internet without leaving a money trail?

"listening to me about as much as you're listening to this pole here"

I’m planning on buying a laser printer but concerned about the life cycle of toner in the machine

Pristine Bit Checking

What to wear for invited talk in Canada

Einstein metrics on spheres

Can produce flame be used to grapple, or as an unarmed strike, in the right circumstances?

Is Fable (1996) connected in any way to the Fable franchise from Lionhead Studios?

Check if two datetimes are between two others

Was there ever an axiom rendered a theorem?

New order #4: World

What is the offset in a seaplane's hull?

Ideas for colorfully and clearly highlighting graph edges according to weights

extract characters between two commas?

Crop image to path created in TikZ?

How many letters suffice to construct words with no repetition?

Why do UK politicians seemingly ignore opinion polls on Brexit?

Is Social Media Science Fiction?

Is domain driven design an anti-SQL pattern?

Can a planet have a different gravitational pull depending on its location in orbit around its sun?

What do the Banks children have against barley water?



COUNT(id) or MAX(id) - which is faster?


How to efficiently count the number of keys/properties of an object in JavaScript?Which “href” value should I use for JavaScript links, “#” or “javascript:void(0)”?Which is faster: Stack allocation or Heap allocationSQL select only rows with max value on a columnWhy are elementwise additions much faster in separate loops than in a combined loop?Why is it faster to process a sorted array than an unsorted array?Why does Python code run faster in a function?Is < faster than <=?Which is faster: while(1) or while(2)?Why is [] faster than list()?






.everyoneloves__top-leaderboard:empty,.everyoneloves__mid-leaderboard:empty,.everyoneloves__bot-mid-leaderboard:empty{ height:90px;width:728px;box-sizing:border-box;
}







6















i have a web server, that has my own messaging system implemented.
I am at phase, when i need to create API, that checks, if the user has new message(s).
My DB table is simple:



ID - Auto Increment, Primary Key (Bigint)
Sender - Varchar (32) // Foreign Key to UserID hash from Users DB Table
Recipient - Varchar (32) // Foreign Key to UserID hash from Users DB Table
Message - Varchar (256) //UTF8 BIN


I am considering to make an api, that will estimate, if there are new messages for given user. I am thinking to use one of these methods:



A) Select count(*) of messages where sender or recipient is me (if this number > previous number, i have new message)



B) Select max(ID) of messages where sender or recipient is me (if max(ID) > than previous number, i have new message)



My question is: Can i calculate somehow, what method will consume less server resources? Or is there some article? Maybe another method i not mentioned?










share|improve this question




















  • 1





    I think you would be better off by adding a timestamp column and checking against that value to see if there are newer records.

    – Dharman
    2 hours ago











  • Either querying a timestamp or the ID, use MAX() on that column, and make sure it's indexed with (user_id, timestamp).

    – The Impaler
    2 hours ago











  • @Dharman i was thinking of it. But it costs extra DB space, also i am not sure if it will be faster than one of my methods. I am storing the simple number (of current messages) in usernames table

    – FeHora
    1 hour ago











  • Calculate? No idea. But you can measure it. Fire off a few thousands of each query and watch machine metrics (cpu%, mem%, load average, etc.)

    – Sergio Tulentsev
    1 hour ago











  • While there is a good answer to this question below, I suspect you might be optimizing on something that turns out not to be important. And unless you anticipate having literally millions of messages, I wouldn't worry about disk space, especially because the timestamp is small compared to your other fields. If you add timestamps, your table will be about 5MB larger for each million messages. That's really nothing.

    – Jerry
    1 hour ago


















6















i have a web server, that has my own messaging system implemented.
I am at phase, when i need to create API, that checks, if the user has new message(s).
My DB table is simple:



ID - Auto Increment, Primary Key (Bigint)
Sender - Varchar (32) // Foreign Key to UserID hash from Users DB Table
Recipient - Varchar (32) // Foreign Key to UserID hash from Users DB Table
Message - Varchar (256) //UTF8 BIN


I am considering to make an api, that will estimate, if there are new messages for given user. I am thinking to use one of these methods:



A) Select count(*) of messages where sender or recipient is me (if this number > previous number, i have new message)



B) Select max(ID) of messages where sender or recipient is me (if max(ID) > than previous number, i have new message)



My question is: Can i calculate somehow, what method will consume less server resources? Or is there some article? Maybe another method i not mentioned?










share|improve this question




















  • 1





    I think you would be better off by adding a timestamp column and checking against that value to see if there are newer records.

    – Dharman
    2 hours ago











  • Either querying a timestamp or the ID, use MAX() on that column, and make sure it's indexed with (user_id, timestamp).

    – The Impaler
    2 hours ago











  • @Dharman i was thinking of it. But it costs extra DB space, also i am not sure if it will be faster than one of my methods. I am storing the simple number (of current messages) in usernames table

    – FeHora
    1 hour ago











  • Calculate? No idea. But you can measure it. Fire off a few thousands of each query and watch machine metrics (cpu%, mem%, load average, etc.)

    – Sergio Tulentsev
    1 hour ago











  • While there is a good answer to this question below, I suspect you might be optimizing on something that turns out not to be important. And unless you anticipate having literally millions of messages, I wouldn't worry about disk space, especially because the timestamp is small compared to your other fields. If you add timestamps, your table will be about 5MB larger for each million messages. That's really nothing.

    – Jerry
    1 hour ago














6












6








6


1






i have a web server, that has my own messaging system implemented.
I am at phase, when i need to create API, that checks, if the user has new message(s).
My DB table is simple:



ID - Auto Increment, Primary Key (Bigint)
Sender - Varchar (32) // Foreign Key to UserID hash from Users DB Table
Recipient - Varchar (32) // Foreign Key to UserID hash from Users DB Table
Message - Varchar (256) //UTF8 BIN


I am considering to make an api, that will estimate, if there are new messages for given user. I am thinking to use one of these methods:



A) Select count(*) of messages where sender or recipient is me (if this number > previous number, i have new message)



B) Select max(ID) of messages where sender or recipient is me (if max(ID) > than previous number, i have new message)



My question is: Can i calculate somehow, what method will consume less server resources? Or is there some article? Maybe another method i not mentioned?










share|improve this question
















i have a web server, that has my own messaging system implemented.
I am at phase, when i need to create API, that checks, if the user has new message(s).
My DB table is simple:



ID - Auto Increment, Primary Key (Bigint)
Sender - Varchar (32) // Foreign Key to UserID hash from Users DB Table
Recipient - Varchar (32) // Foreign Key to UserID hash from Users DB Table
Message - Varchar (256) //UTF8 BIN


I am considering to make an api, that will estimate, if there are new messages for given user. I am thinking to use one of these methods:



A) Select count(*) of messages where sender or recipient is me (if this number > previous number, i have new message)



B) Select max(ID) of messages where sender or recipient is me (if max(ID) > than previous number, i have new message)



My question is: Can i calculate somehow, what method will consume less server resources? Or is there some article? Maybe another method i not mentioned?







php mysql performance






share|improve this question















share|improve this question













share|improve this question




share|improve this question








edited 1 hour ago









Kaii

15.6k22850




15.6k22850










asked 2 hours ago









FeHoraFeHora

385




385








  • 1





    I think you would be better off by adding a timestamp column and checking against that value to see if there are newer records.

    – Dharman
    2 hours ago











  • Either querying a timestamp or the ID, use MAX() on that column, and make sure it's indexed with (user_id, timestamp).

    – The Impaler
    2 hours ago











  • @Dharman i was thinking of it. But it costs extra DB space, also i am not sure if it will be faster than one of my methods. I am storing the simple number (of current messages) in usernames table

    – FeHora
    1 hour ago











  • Calculate? No idea. But you can measure it. Fire off a few thousands of each query and watch machine metrics (cpu%, mem%, load average, etc.)

    – Sergio Tulentsev
    1 hour ago











  • While there is a good answer to this question below, I suspect you might be optimizing on something that turns out not to be important. And unless you anticipate having literally millions of messages, I wouldn't worry about disk space, especially because the timestamp is small compared to your other fields. If you add timestamps, your table will be about 5MB larger for each million messages. That's really nothing.

    – Jerry
    1 hour ago














  • 1





    I think you would be better off by adding a timestamp column and checking against that value to see if there are newer records.

    – Dharman
    2 hours ago











  • Either querying a timestamp or the ID, use MAX() on that column, and make sure it's indexed with (user_id, timestamp).

    – The Impaler
    2 hours ago











  • @Dharman i was thinking of it. But it costs extra DB space, also i am not sure if it will be faster than one of my methods. I am storing the simple number (of current messages) in usernames table

    – FeHora
    1 hour ago











  • Calculate? No idea. But you can measure it. Fire off a few thousands of each query and watch machine metrics (cpu%, mem%, load average, etc.)

    – Sergio Tulentsev
    1 hour ago











  • While there is a good answer to this question below, I suspect you might be optimizing on something that turns out not to be important. And unless you anticipate having literally millions of messages, I wouldn't worry about disk space, especially because the timestamp is small compared to your other fields. If you add timestamps, your table will be about 5MB larger for each million messages. That's really nothing.

    – Jerry
    1 hour ago








1




1





I think you would be better off by adding a timestamp column and checking against that value to see if there are newer records.

– Dharman
2 hours ago





I think you would be better off by adding a timestamp column and checking against that value to see if there are newer records.

– Dharman
2 hours ago













Either querying a timestamp or the ID, use MAX() on that column, and make sure it's indexed with (user_id, timestamp).

– The Impaler
2 hours ago





Either querying a timestamp or the ID, use MAX() on that column, and make sure it's indexed with (user_id, timestamp).

– The Impaler
2 hours ago













@Dharman i was thinking of it. But it costs extra DB space, also i am not sure if it will be faster than one of my methods. I am storing the simple number (of current messages) in usernames table

– FeHora
1 hour ago





@Dharman i was thinking of it. But it costs extra DB space, also i am not sure if it will be faster than one of my methods. I am storing the simple number (of current messages) in usernames table

– FeHora
1 hour ago













Calculate? No idea. But you can measure it. Fire off a few thousands of each query and watch machine metrics (cpu%, mem%, load average, etc.)

– Sergio Tulentsev
1 hour ago





Calculate? No idea. But you can measure it. Fire off a few thousands of each query and watch machine metrics (cpu%, mem%, load average, etc.)

– Sergio Tulentsev
1 hour ago













While there is a good answer to this question below, I suspect you might be optimizing on something that turns out not to be important. And unless you anticipate having literally millions of messages, I wouldn't worry about disk space, especially because the timestamp is small compared to your other fields. If you add timestamps, your table will be about 5MB larger for each million messages. That's really nothing.

– Jerry
1 hour ago





While there is a good answer to this question below, I suspect you might be optimizing on something that turns out not to be important. And unless you anticipate having literally millions of messages, I wouldn't worry about disk space, especially because the timestamp is small compared to your other fields. If you add timestamps, your table will be about 5MB larger for each million messages. That's really nothing.

– Jerry
1 hour ago












2 Answers
2






active

oldest

votes


















8














In MySQL InnoDB, SELECT COUNT(*) WHERE secondary_index = ? is an expensive operation and when the user has a lot of messages, this query might take a long time. Even when using an index, the engine still needs to count all matching records.



On the other hand, SELECT MAX(id) WHERE secondary_index = ? can deliver the highest id in that index very efficiently and runs in constant speed by doing a so-called loose index scan.



If you want to understand why, consider looking up the "B-Tree+" data structure which InnoDB uses to organise its data.



I suggest you go with SELECT MAX(id), if the requirement is only to check if there are new messages (and not the count of them).



Also, if you rely on the message count you might open a gap for race conditions. What if the user deletes a message and receives a new one between two polling intervals?






share|improve this answer


























  • refer: dba.stackexchange.com/questions/130780/mysql-count-performance

    – Kaii
    1 hour ago






  • 1





    "SELECT MAX(id) will always use the primary index" - yeah, except for the cases when there's a where on an unindexed field.

    – Sergio Tulentsev
    1 hour ago











  • @SergioTulentsev i forgot to mention in my main post, sender and recipient are foreign keys to user-hash (ID) - primary key in users table. So it will be indexed always.

    – FeHora
    1 hour ago













  • @Kaii "Also, if you rely on the message count you might open a gap for race conditions. What if the user deletes a message and receives a new one between two polling intervals?" if the user deletes the message it just become hidden for security reasons, it will have a value hidden:true. but the count will not change

    – FeHora
    1 hour ago






  • 2





    If there's an index on a, then SELECT MAX(id) FROM tbl WHERE a=constant uses a so-called loose index scan. Those are almost miraculously fast. SELECT COUNT(*) FROM tbl WHERE a=constant does a tight index scan, which is not as fast.

    – O. Jones
    1 hour ago





















-1














To have the information that someone has new messages - do exactly that. Update the field in users table (I'm assuming that's the name) when a new message is recorded in the system. You have the recipient's ID, that's all you need. You can create an after insert trigger (assumption: there's users2messages table) that updates users table with a boolean flag indicating there's a message.



This approach is by far faster than counting indexes, be the index primary or secondary. When the user performs an action, you can update the users table with has_messages = 0, when a new message arrives - you update the table with has_messages = 1. It's simple, it works, it scales and using triggers to maintain it makes it easy and seamless.
I'm sure there will be nay-sayers who don't like triggers, you can do it manually at the point of associating a user with a new message.






share|improve this answer
























  • triggers aside, looking up a row using the PK and also reading it to check the boolean is still more expensive than executing a single loose index scan. It gets worse when you also add a WHERE clause to check the boolean flag because of the low cardinality even if you index that field. Sorry to tell you you that, but you have a misunderstanding there.

    – Kaii
    1 hour ago













  • @Mjh i know about that.. but it's definitely more expensive than my suggested methods, because it contains (at least) 1x update + 1x select

    – FeHora
    56 mins ago











  • @Kaii SELECT has_messages FROM users WHERE id = 1; is the fastest query there is. It's an eq_ref which is infinitely faster than counting a number of records in the table. The boolean field is not in the WHERE clause, the primary key is. Please, assume better next time. In regards to updating the table: the update is fast as well, it handles a single row located using the primary key. If the field is already containing the value that you're updating to, no actual disk I/O occurs and there's a minimal performance penalty. Much less than counting the records. You can measure.

    – Mjh
    42 mins ago














Your Answer






StackExchange.ifUsing("editor", function () {
StackExchange.using("externalEditor", function () {
StackExchange.using("snippets", function () {
StackExchange.snippets.init();
});
});
}, "code-snippets");

StackExchange.ready(function() {
var channelOptions = {
tags: "".split(" "),
id: "1"
};
initTagRenderer("".split(" "), "".split(" "), channelOptions);

StackExchange.using("externalEditor", function() {
// Have to fire editor after snippets, if snippets enabled
if (StackExchange.settings.snippets.snippetsEnabled) {
StackExchange.using("snippets", function() {
createEditor();
});
}
else {
createEditor();
}
});

function createEditor() {
StackExchange.prepareEditor({
heartbeatType: 'answer',
autoActivateHeartbeat: false,
convertImagesToLinks: true,
noModals: true,
showLowRepImageUploadWarning: true,
reputationToPostImages: 10,
bindNavPrevention: true,
postfix: "",
imageUploader: {
brandingHtml: "Powered by u003ca class="icon-imgur-white" href="https://imgur.com/"u003eu003c/au003e",
contentPolicyHtml: "User contributions licensed under u003ca href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"u003ecc by-sa 3.0 with attribution requiredu003c/au003e u003ca href="https://stackoverflow.com/legal/content-policy"u003e(content policy)u003c/au003e",
allowUrls: true
},
onDemand: true,
discardSelector: ".discard-answer"
,immediatelyShowMarkdownHelp:true
});


}
});














draft saved

draft discarded


















StackExchange.ready(
function () {
StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2fstackoverflow.com%2fquestions%2f55581114%2fcountid-or-maxid-which-is-faster%23new-answer', 'question_page');
}
);

Post as a guest















Required, but never shown

























2 Answers
2






active

oldest

votes








2 Answers
2






active

oldest

votes









active

oldest

votes






active

oldest

votes









8














In MySQL InnoDB, SELECT COUNT(*) WHERE secondary_index = ? is an expensive operation and when the user has a lot of messages, this query might take a long time. Even when using an index, the engine still needs to count all matching records.



On the other hand, SELECT MAX(id) WHERE secondary_index = ? can deliver the highest id in that index very efficiently and runs in constant speed by doing a so-called loose index scan.



If you want to understand why, consider looking up the "B-Tree+" data structure which InnoDB uses to organise its data.



I suggest you go with SELECT MAX(id), if the requirement is only to check if there are new messages (and not the count of them).



Also, if you rely on the message count you might open a gap for race conditions. What if the user deletes a message and receives a new one between two polling intervals?






share|improve this answer


























  • refer: dba.stackexchange.com/questions/130780/mysql-count-performance

    – Kaii
    1 hour ago






  • 1





    "SELECT MAX(id) will always use the primary index" - yeah, except for the cases when there's a where on an unindexed field.

    – Sergio Tulentsev
    1 hour ago











  • @SergioTulentsev i forgot to mention in my main post, sender and recipient are foreign keys to user-hash (ID) - primary key in users table. So it will be indexed always.

    – FeHora
    1 hour ago













  • @Kaii "Also, if you rely on the message count you might open a gap for race conditions. What if the user deletes a message and receives a new one between two polling intervals?" if the user deletes the message it just become hidden for security reasons, it will have a value hidden:true. but the count will not change

    – FeHora
    1 hour ago






  • 2





    If there's an index on a, then SELECT MAX(id) FROM tbl WHERE a=constant uses a so-called loose index scan. Those are almost miraculously fast. SELECT COUNT(*) FROM tbl WHERE a=constant does a tight index scan, which is not as fast.

    – O. Jones
    1 hour ago


















8














In MySQL InnoDB, SELECT COUNT(*) WHERE secondary_index = ? is an expensive operation and when the user has a lot of messages, this query might take a long time. Even when using an index, the engine still needs to count all matching records.



On the other hand, SELECT MAX(id) WHERE secondary_index = ? can deliver the highest id in that index very efficiently and runs in constant speed by doing a so-called loose index scan.



If you want to understand why, consider looking up the "B-Tree+" data structure which InnoDB uses to organise its data.



I suggest you go with SELECT MAX(id), if the requirement is only to check if there are new messages (and not the count of them).



Also, if you rely on the message count you might open a gap for race conditions. What if the user deletes a message and receives a new one between two polling intervals?






share|improve this answer


























  • refer: dba.stackexchange.com/questions/130780/mysql-count-performance

    – Kaii
    1 hour ago






  • 1





    "SELECT MAX(id) will always use the primary index" - yeah, except for the cases when there's a where on an unindexed field.

    – Sergio Tulentsev
    1 hour ago











  • @SergioTulentsev i forgot to mention in my main post, sender and recipient are foreign keys to user-hash (ID) - primary key in users table. So it will be indexed always.

    – FeHora
    1 hour ago













  • @Kaii "Also, if you rely on the message count you might open a gap for race conditions. What if the user deletes a message and receives a new one between two polling intervals?" if the user deletes the message it just become hidden for security reasons, it will have a value hidden:true. but the count will not change

    – FeHora
    1 hour ago






  • 2





    If there's an index on a, then SELECT MAX(id) FROM tbl WHERE a=constant uses a so-called loose index scan. Those are almost miraculously fast. SELECT COUNT(*) FROM tbl WHERE a=constant does a tight index scan, which is not as fast.

    – O. Jones
    1 hour ago
















8












8








8







In MySQL InnoDB, SELECT COUNT(*) WHERE secondary_index = ? is an expensive operation and when the user has a lot of messages, this query might take a long time. Even when using an index, the engine still needs to count all matching records.



On the other hand, SELECT MAX(id) WHERE secondary_index = ? can deliver the highest id in that index very efficiently and runs in constant speed by doing a so-called loose index scan.



If you want to understand why, consider looking up the "B-Tree+" data structure which InnoDB uses to organise its data.



I suggest you go with SELECT MAX(id), if the requirement is only to check if there are new messages (and not the count of them).



Also, if you rely on the message count you might open a gap for race conditions. What if the user deletes a message and receives a new one between two polling intervals?






share|improve this answer















In MySQL InnoDB, SELECT COUNT(*) WHERE secondary_index = ? is an expensive operation and when the user has a lot of messages, this query might take a long time. Even when using an index, the engine still needs to count all matching records.



On the other hand, SELECT MAX(id) WHERE secondary_index = ? can deliver the highest id in that index very efficiently and runs in constant speed by doing a so-called loose index scan.



If you want to understand why, consider looking up the "B-Tree+" data structure which InnoDB uses to organise its data.



I suggest you go with SELECT MAX(id), if the requirement is only to check if there are new messages (and not the count of them).



Also, if you rely on the message count you might open a gap for race conditions. What if the user deletes a message and receives a new one between two polling intervals?







share|improve this answer














share|improve this answer



share|improve this answer








edited 1 hour ago

























answered 1 hour ago









KaiiKaii

15.6k22850




15.6k22850













  • refer: dba.stackexchange.com/questions/130780/mysql-count-performance

    – Kaii
    1 hour ago






  • 1





    "SELECT MAX(id) will always use the primary index" - yeah, except for the cases when there's a where on an unindexed field.

    – Sergio Tulentsev
    1 hour ago











  • @SergioTulentsev i forgot to mention in my main post, sender and recipient are foreign keys to user-hash (ID) - primary key in users table. So it will be indexed always.

    – FeHora
    1 hour ago













  • @Kaii "Also, if you rely on the message count you might open a gap for race conditions. What if the user deletes a message and receives a new one between two polling intervals?" if the user deletes the message it just become hidden for security reasons, it will have a value hidden:true. but the count will not change

    – FeHora
    1 hour ago






  • 2





    If there's an index on a, then SELECT MAX(id) FROM tbl WHERE a=constant uses a so-called loose index scan. Those are almost miraculously fast. SELECT COUNT(*) FROM tbl WHERE a=constant does a tight index scan, which is not as fast.

    – O. Jones
    1 hour ago





















  • refer: dba.stackexchange.com/questions/130780/mysql-count-performance

    – Kaii
    1 hour ago






  • 1





    "SELECT MAX(id) will always use the primary index" - yeah, except for the cases when there's a where on an unindexed field.

    – Sergio Tulentsev
    1 hour ago











  • @SergioTulentsev i forgot to mention in my main post, sender and recipient are foreign keys to user-hash (ID) - primary key in users table. So it will be indexed always.

    – FeHora
    1 hour ago













  • @Kaii "Also, if you rely on the message count you might open a gap for race conditions. What if the user deletes a message and receives a new one between two polling intervals?" if the user deletes the message it just become hidden for security reasons, it will have a value hidden:true. but the count will not change

    – FeHora
    1 hour ago






  • 2





    If there's an index on a, then SELECT MAX(id) FROM tbl WHERE a=constant uses a so-called loose index scan. Those are almost miraculously fast. SELECT COUNT(*) FROM tbl WHERE a=constant does a tight index scan, which is not as fast.

    – O. Jones
    1 hour ago



















refer: dba.stackexchange.com/questions/130780/mysql-count-performance

– Kaii
1 hour ago





refer: dba.stackexchange.com/questions/130780/mysql-count-performance

– Kaii
1 hour ago




1




1





"SELECT MAX(id) will always use the primary index" - yeah, except for the cases when there's a where on an unindexed field.

– Sergio Tulentsev
1 hour ago





"SELECT MAX(id) will always use the primary index" - yeah, except for the cases when there's a where on an unindexed field.

– Sergio Tulentsev
1 hour ago













@SergioTulentsev i forgot to mention in my main post, sender and recipient are foreign keys to user-hash (ID) - primary key in users table. So it will be indexed always.

– FeHora
1 hour ago







@SergioTulentsev i forgot to mention in my main post, sender and recipient are foreign keys to user-hash (ID) - primary key in users table. So it will be indexed always.

– FeHora
1 hour ago















@Kaii "Also, if you rely on the message count you might open a gap for race conditions. What if the user deletes a message and receives a new one between two polling intervals?" if the user deletes the message it just become hidden for security reasons, it will have a value hidden:true. but the count will not change

– FeHora
1 hour ago





@Kaii "Also, if you rely on the message count you might open a gap for race conditions. What if the user deletes a message and receives a new one between two polling intervals?" if the user deletes the message it just become hidden for security reasons, it will have a value hidden:true. but the count will not change

– FeHora
1 hour ago




2




2





If there's an index on a, then SELECT MAX(id) FROM tbl WHERE a=constant uses a so-called loose index scan. Those are almost miraculously fast. SELECT COUNT(*) FROM tbl WHERE a=constant does a tight index scan, which is not as fast.

– O. Jones
1 hour ago







If there's an index on a, then SELECT MAX(id) FROM tbl WHERE a=constant uses a so-called loose index scan. Those are almost miraculously fast. SELECT COUNT(*) FROM tbl WHERE a=constant does a tight index scan, which is not as fast.

– O. Jones
1 hour ago















-1














To have the information that someone has new messages - do exactly that. Update the field in users table (I'm assuming that's the name) when a new message is recorded in the system. You have the recipient's ID, that's all you need. You can create an after insert trigger (assumption: there's users2messages table) that updates users table with a boolean flag indicating there's a message.



This approach is by far faster than counting indexes, be the index primary or secondary. When the user performs an action, you can update the users table with has_messages = 0, when a new message arrives - you update the table with has_messages = 1. It's simple, it works, it scales and using triggers to maintain it makes it easy and seamless.
I'm sure there will be nay-sayers who don't like triggers, you can do it manually at the point of associating a user with a new message.






share|improve this answer
























  • triggers aside, looking up a row using the PK and also reading it to check the boolean is still more expensive than executing a single loose index scan. It gets worse when you also add a WHERE clause to check the boolean flag because of the low cardinality even if you index that field. Sorry to tell you you that, but you have a misunderstanding there.

    – Kaii
    1 hour ago













  • @Mjh i know about that.. but it's definitely more expensive than my suggested methods, because it contains (at least) 1x update + 1x select

    – FeHora
    56 mins ago











  • @Kaii SELECT has_messages FROM users WHERE id = 1; is the fastest query there is. It's an eq_ref which is infinitely faster than counting a number of records in the table. The boolean field is not in the WHERE clause, the primary key is. Please, assume better next time. In regards to updating the table: the update is fast as well, it handles a single row located using the primary key. If the field is already containing the value that you're updating to, no actual disk I/O occurs and there's a minimal performance penalty. Much less than counting the records. You can measure.

    – Mjh
    42 mins ago


















-1














To have the information that someone has new messages - do exactly that. Update the field in users table (I'm assuming that's the name) when a new message is recorded in the system. You have the recipient's ID, that's all you need. You can create an after insert trigger (assumption: there's users2messages table) that updates users table with a boolean flag indicating there's a message.



This approach is by far faster than counting indexes, be the index primary or secondary. When the user performs an action, you can update the users table with has_messages = 0, when a new message arrives - you update the table with has_messages = 1. It's simple, it works, it scales and using triggers to maintain it makes it easy and seamless.
I'm sure there will be nay-sayers who don't like triggers, you can do it manually at the point of associating a user with a new message.






share|improve this answer
























  • triggers aside, looking up a row using the PK and also reading it to check the boolean is still more expensive than executing a single loose index scan. It gets worse when you also add a WHERE clause to check the boolean flag because of the low cardinality even if you index that field. Sorry to tell you you that, but you have a misunderstanding there.

    – Kaii
    1 hour ago













  • @Mjh i know about that.. but it's definitely more expensive than my suggested methods, because it contains (at least) 1x update + 1x select

    – FeHora
    56 mins ago











  • @Kaii SELECT has_messages FROM users WHERE id = 1; is the fastest query there is. It's an eq_ref which is infinitely faster than counting a number of records in the table. The boolean field is not in the WHERE clause, the primary key is. Please, assume better next time. In regards to updating the table: the update is fast as well, it handles a single row located using the primary key. If the field is already containing the value that you're updating to, no actual disk I/O occurs and there's a minimal performance penalty. Much less than counting the records. You can measure.

    – Mjh
    42 mins ago
















-1












-1








-1







To have the information that someone has new messages - do exactly that. Update the field in users table (I'm assuming that's the name) when a new message is recorded in the system. You have the recipient's ID, that's all you need. You can create an after insert trigger (assumption: there's users2messages table) that updates users table with a boolean flag indicating there's a message.



This approach is by far faster than counting indexes, be the index primary or secondary. When the user performs an action, you can update the users table with has_messages = 0, when a new message arrives - you update the table with has_messages = 1. It's simple, it works, it scales and using triggers to maintain it makes it easy and seamless.
I'm sure there will be nay-sayers who don't like triggers, you can do it manually at the point of associating a user with a new message.






share|improve this answer













To have the information that someone has new messages - do exactly that. Update the field in users table (I'm assuming that's the name) when a new message is recorded in the system. You have the recipient's ID, that's all you need. You can create an after insert trigger (assumption: there's users2messages table) that updates users table with a boolean flag indicating there's a message.



This approach is by far faster than counting indexes, be the index primary or secondary. When the user performs an action, you can update the users table with has_messages = 0, when a new message arrives - you update the table with has_messages = 1. It's simple, it works, it scales and using triggers to maintain it makes it easy and seamless.
I'm sure there will be nay-sayers who don't like triggers, you can do it manually at the point of associating a user with a new message.







share|improve this answer












share|improve this answer



share|improve this answer










answered 1 hour ago









MjhMjh

1,96911112




1,96911112













  • triggers aside, looking up a row using the PK and also reading it to check the boolean is still more expensive than executing a single loose index scan. It gets worse when you also add a WHERE clause to check the boolean flag because of the low cardinality even if you index that field. Sorry to tell you you that, but you have a misunderstanding there.

    – Kaii
    1 hour ago













  • @Mjh i know about that.. but it's definitely more expensive than my suggested methods, because it contains (at least) 1x update + 1x select

    – FeHora
    56 mins ago











  • @Kaii SELECT has_messages FROM users WHERE id = 1; is the fastest query there is. It's an eq_ref which is infinitely faster than counting a number of records in the table. The boolean field is not in the WHERE clause, the primary key is. Please, assume better next time. In regards to updating the table: the update is fast as well, it handles a single row located using the primary key. If the field is already containing the value that you're updating to, no actual disk I/O occurs and there's a minimal performance penalty. Much less than counting the records. You can measure.

    – Mjh
    42 mins ago





















  • triggers aside, looking up a row using the PK and also reading it to check the boolean is still more expensive than executing a single loose index scan. It gets worse when you also add a WHERE clause to check the boolean flag because of the low cardinality even if you index that field. Sorry to tell you you that, but you have a misunderstanding there.

    – Kaii
    1 hour ago













  • @Mjh i know about that.. but it's definitely more expensive than my suggested methods, because it contains (at least) 1x update + 1x select

    – FeHora
    56 mins ago











  • @Kaii SELECT has_messages FROM users WHERE id = 1; is the fastest query there is. It's an eq_ref which is infinitely faster than counting a number of records in the table. The boolean field is not in the WHERE clause, the primary key is. Please, assume better next time. In regards to updating the table: the update is fast as well, it handles a single row located using the primary key. If the field is already containing the value that you're updating to, no actual disk I/O occurs and there's a minimal performance penalty. Much less than counting the records. You can measure.

    – Mjh
    42 mins ago



















triggers aside, looking up a row using the PK and also reading it to check the boolean is still more expensive than executing a single loose index scan. It gets worse when you also add a WHERE clause to check the boolean flag because of the low cardinality even if you index that field. Sorry to tell you you that, but you have a misunderstanding there.

– Kaii
1 hour ago







triggers aside, looking up a row using the PK and also reading it to check the boolean is still more expensive than executing a single loose index scan. It gets worse when you also add a WHERE clause to check the boolean flag because of the low cardinality even if you index that field. Sorry to tell you you that, but you have a misunderstanding there.

– Kaii
1 hour ago















@Mjh i know about that.. but it's definitely more expensive than my suggested methods, because it contains (at least) 1x update + 1x select

– FeHora
56 mins ago





@Mjh i know about that.. but it's definitely more expensive than my suggested methods, because it contains (at least) 1x update + 1x select

– FeHora
56 mins ago













@Kaii SELECT has_messages FROM users WHERE id = 1; is the fastest query there is. It's an eq_ref which is infinitely faster than counting a number of records in the table. The boolean field is not in the WHERE clause, the primary key is. Please, assume better next time. In regards to updating the table: the update is fast as well, it handles a single row located using the primary key. If the field is already containing the value that you're updating to, no actual disk I/O occurs and there's a minimal performance penalty. Much less than counting the records. You can measure.

– Mjh
42 mins ago







@Kaii SELECT has_messages FROM users WHERE id = 1; is the fastest query there is. It's an eq_ref which is infinitely faster than counting a number of records in the table. The boolean field is not in the WHERE clause, the primary key is. Please, assume better next time. In regards to updating the table: the update is fast as well, it handles a single row located using the primary key. If the field is already containing the value that you're updating to, no actual disk I/O occurs and there's a minimal performance penalty. Much less than counting the records. You can measure.

– Mjh
42 mins ago




















draft saved

draft discarded




















































Thanks for contributing an answer to Stack Overflow!


  • Please be sure to answer the question. Provide details and share your research!

But avoid



  • Asking for help, clarification, or responding to other answers.

  • Making statements based on opinion; back them up with references or personal experience.


To learn more, see our tips on writing great answers.




draft saved


draft discarded














StackExchange.ready(
function () {
StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2fstackoverflow.com%2fquestions%2f55581114%2fcountid-or-maxid-which-is-faster%23new-answer', 'question_page');
}
);

Post as a guest















Required, but never shown





















































Required, but never shown














Required, but never shown












Required, but never shown







Required, but never shown

































Required, but never shown














Required, but never shown












Required, but never shown







Required, but never shown







Popular posts from this blog

迭戈·戈丁...

A phrase ”follow into" in a context The 2019 Stack Overflow Developer Survey Results Are...

1960s short story making fun of James Bond-style spy fiction The 2019 Stack Overflow Developer...