MySQL 5.5 Reference Manual

7.13.1.1. The Range Access Method for Single-Part Indexes
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7.13.1.1. The Range Access Method for Single-Part Indexes

For a single-part index, index value intervals can be conveniently represented by corresponding conditions in the WHERE clause, so we speak of range conditions rather than “intervals.”

The definition of a range condition for a single-part index is as follows:

For both BTREE and HASH indexes, comparison of a key part with a constant value is a range condition when using the =, <=>, IN(), IS NULL, or IS NOT NULL operators.
Additionally, for BTREE indexes, comparison of a key part with a constant value is a range condition when using the >, <, >=, <=, BETWEEN, !=, or <> operators, or LIKE comparisons if the argument to LIKE is a constant string that does not start with a wildcard character.
For all types of indexes, multiple range conditions combined with OR or AND form a range condition.

“Constant value” in the preceding descriptions means one of the following:

A constant from the query string
A column of a const or system table from the same join
The result of an uncorrelated subquery
Any expression composed entirely from subexpressions of the preceding types

Here are some examples of queries with range conditions in the WHERE clause:

SELECT * FROM t1
  WHERE key_col > 1
  AND key_col < 10;

SELECT * FROM t1
  WHERE key_col = 1
  OR key_col IN (15,18,20);

SELECT * FROM t1
  WHERE key_col LIKE 'ab%'
  OR key_col BETWEEN 'bar' AND 'foo';

Note that some nonconstant values may be converted to constants during the constant propagation phase.

MySQL tries to extract range conditions from the WHERE clause for each of the possible indexes. During the extraction process, conditions that cannot be used for constructing the range condition are dropped, conditions that produce overlapping ranges are combined, and conditions that produce empty ranges are removed.

Consider the following statement, where key1 is an indexed column and nonkey is not indexed:

SELECT * FROM t1 WHERE
  (key1 < 'abc' AND (key1 LIKE 'abcde%' OR key1 LIKE '%b')) OR
  (key1 < 'bar' AND nonkey = 4) OR
  (key1 < 'uux' AND key1 > 'z');

The extraction process for key key1 is as follows:

Start with original WHERE clause:

(key1 < 'abc' AND (key1 LIKE 'abcde%' OR key1 LIKE '%b')) OR
(key1 < 'bar' AND nonkey = 4) OR
(key1 < 'uux' AND key1 > 'z')

Remove nonkey = 4 and key1 LIKE '%b' because they cannot be used for a range scan. The correct way to remove them is to replace them with TRUE, so that we do not miss any matching rows when doing the range scan. Having replaced them with TRUE, we get:
```
(key1 < 'abc' AND (key1 LIKE 'abcde%' OR TRUE)) OR
(key1 < 'bar' AND TRUE) OR
(key1 < 'uux' AND key1 > 'z')
```
Collapse conditions that are always true or false:
- (key1 LIKE 'abcde%' OR TRUE) is always true
- (key1 < 'uux' AND key1 > 'z') is always false
Replacing these conditions with constants, we get:
```
(key1 < 'abc' AND TRUE) OR (key1 < 'bar' AND TRUE) OR (FALSE)
```
Removing unnecessary TRUE and FALSE constants, we obtain:
```
(key1 < 'abc') OR (key1 < 'bar')
```
Combining overlapping intervals into one yields the final condition to be used for the range scan:
```
(key1 < 'bar')
```

In general (and as demonstrated by the preceding example), the condition used for a range scan is less restrictive than the WHERE clause. MySQL performs an additional check to filter out rows that satisfy the range condition but not the full WHERE clause.

The range condition extraction algorithm can handle nested AND/OR constructs of arbitrary depth, and its output does not depend on the order in which conditions appear in WHERE clause.

Currently, MySQL does not support merging multiple ranges for the range access method for spatial indexes. To work around this limitation, you can use a UNION with identical SELECT statements, except that you put each spatial predicate in a different SELECT.

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7.13.1.1. The Range Access Method for Single-Part Indexes