7.13.3. Engine Condition Pushdown Optimization

This optimization improves the efficiency of direct comparisons between a nonindexed column and a constant. In such cases, the condition is “pushed down” to the storage engine for evaluation. This optimization can be used only by the NDBCLUSTER storage engine.

Note

The NDBCLUSTER storage engine is currently not available in MySQL 5.5. If you are interested in using MySQL Cluster, see MySQL Cluster NDB 6.X/7.X, which provides information about MySQL Cluster NDB 7.0 and 7.1, which are based on MySQL 5.1 but contain the latest improvements and fixes for NDBCLUSTER.

For MySQL Cluster, this optimization can eliminate the need to send nonmatching rows over the network between the cluster's data nodes and the MySQL Server that issued the query, and can speed up queries where it is used by a factor of 5 to 10 times over cases where condition pushdown could be but is not used.

Suppose that a MySQL Cluster table is defined as follows:

CREATE TABLE t1 (
    a INT,
    b INT,
    KEY(a)
) ENGINE=NDBCLUSTER;

Condition pushdown can be used with queries such as the one shown here, which includes a comparison between a nonindexed column and a constant:

SELECT a, b FROM t1 WHERE b = 10;

The use of condition pushdown can be seen in the output of EXPLAIN:

mysql> EXPLAIN SELECT a,b FROM t1 WHERE b = 10\G
*************************** 1. row ***************************
           id: 1
  select_type: SIMPLE
        table: t1
         type: ALL
possible_keys: NULL
          key: NULL
      key_len: NULL
          ref: NULL
         rows: 10
        Extra: Using where with pushed condition

However, condition pushdown cannot be used with either of these two queries:

SELECT a,b FROM t1 WHERE a = 10;
SELECT a,b FROM t1 WHERE b + 1 = 10;

Condition pushdown is not applicable to the first query because an index exists on column a. (An index access method would be more efficient and so would be chosen in preference to condition pushdown.) Condition pushdown cannot be employed for the second query because the comparison involving the nonindexed column b is indirect. (However, condition pushdown could be applied if you were to reduce b + 1 = 10 to b = 9 in the WHERE clause.)

Condition pushdown may also be employed when an indexed column is compared with a constant using a > or < operator:

mysql> EXPLAIN SELECT a, b FROM t1 WHERE a < 2\G
*************************** 1. row ***************************
           id: 1
  select_type: SIMPLE
        table: t1
         type: range
possible_keys: a
          key: a
      key_len: 5
          ref: NULL
         rows: 2
        Extra: Using where with pushed condition

Other supported comparisons for condition pushdown include the following:

  • column [NOT] LIKE pattern

    pattern must be a string literal containing the pattern to be matched; for syntax, see Section 11.5.1, “String Comparison Functions”.

  • column IS [NOT] NULL

  • column IN (value_list)

    Each item in the value_list must be a constant, literal value.

  • column BETWEEN constant1 AND constant2

    constant1 and constant2 must each be a constant, literal value.

In all of the cases in the preceding list, it is possible for the condition to be converted into the form of one or more direct comparisons between a column and a constant.

Engine condition pushdown is enabled by default. To disable it at server startup, set the optimizer_switch system variable. For example, in a my.cnf file, use these lines:

[mysqld]
optimizer_switch=engine_condition_pushdown=off

At runtime, disable condition pushdown like this:

SET optimizer_switch='engine_condition_pushdown=off';

Before MySQL 5.5.3, disable condition pushdown using the engine_condition_pushdown system variable. At server startup:

[mysqld]
engine_condition_pushdown=0

At runtime, use either of these statements:

SET engine_condition_pushdown=OFF;
SET engine_condition_pushdown=0;

Limitations.  Condition pushdown is subject to the following limitations:

  • Condition pushdown is supported only by the NDBCLUSTER storage engine.

  • Columns may be compared with constants only; however, this includes expressions which evaluate to constant values.

  • Columns used in comparisons cannot be of any of the BLOB or TEXT types.

  • A string value to be compared with a column must use the same collation as the column.

  • Joins are not directly supported; conditions involving multiple tables are pushed separately where possible. Use EXPLAIN EXTENDED to determine which conditions are actually pushed down.

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