Conditional aggregation performance

Question

Let us have the following data

 IF OBJECT_ID(\'dbo.LogTable\', \'U\') IS NOT NULL  DROP TABLE dbo.LogTable

 SELECT TOP 100000 DATEADD(day, ( ABS(CHECKSUM(NE         


        

Answer 1

Here's my example where subqueries on large tables were extremely slow (around 40-50sec) and I was given the advice to rewrite the query with FILTER (Conditional Aggregation) which sped it up to 1sec. I was amazed.

Now I always use FILTER Conditional Aggregation because you only join on the large tables just once, and all the retrieval is done with FILTER. It's a bad idea to sub-select on large tables.

Thread: SQL Performance Issues with Inner Selects in Postgres for tabulated report

I needed a tabulated report, as follows,

Example (easy flat stuff first, then the complicated tabulated stuff):

RecallID | RecallDate | Event |..| WalkAlone | WalkWithPartner |..| ExerciseAtGym
256      | 10-01-19   | Exrcs |..| NULL      | NULL            |..| yes
256      | 10-01-19   | Walk  |..| yes       | NULL            |..| NULL
256      | 10-01-19   | Eat   |..| NULL      | NULL            |..| NULL
257      | 10-01-19   | Exrcs |..| NULL      | NULL            |..| yes

My SQL had Inner Selects for the tabulated answer-based columns, and looked like this:

select 
-- Easy flat stuff first
r.id as recallid, r.recall_date as recalldate, ... ,

-- Example of Tabulated Columns:
(select l.description from answers_t ans, activity_questions_t aq, lookup_t l 
where l.id=aq.answer_choice_id and aq.question_id=13 
and aq.id=ans.activity_question_id and aq.activity_id=27 and ans.event_id=e.id) 
     as transportationotherintensity,
(select l.description from answers_t ans, activity_questions_t aq, lookup_t l
where l.id=66 and l.id=aq.answer_choice_id and aq.question_id=14
and aq.id=ans.activity_question_id and ans.event_id=e.id) 
     as commutework,
(select l.description from answers_t ans, activity_questions_t aq, lookup_t l
where l.id=67 and l.id=aq.answer_choice_id and aq.question_id=14 and aq.id=ans.activity_question_id and ans.event_id=e.id) 
     as commuteschool,
(select l.description from answers_t ans, activity_questions_t aq, lookup_t l
where l.id=95 and l.id=aq.answer_choice_id and aq.question_id=14 and aq.id=ans.activity_question_id and ans.event_id=e.id) 
     as dropoffpickup,

The performance was horrible. Gordon Linoff recommended the one-time Join on the large table ANSWERS_T with FILTER as appropriate on all the tabulated Selects. That sped it up to 1 sec.

select ans.event_id,
       max(l.description) filter (where aq.question_id = 13 and aq.activity_id = 27) as transportationotherintensity
       max(l.description) filter (where l.id = 66 and aq.question_id = 14 and aq.activity_id = 67) as commutework,
       . . .
from activity_questions_t aq join
     lookup_t l 
     on l.id = aq.answer_choice_id join
     answers_t ans
     on aq.id = ans.activity_question_id
group by ans.event_id