Indexing LIKE Filters

The SQL LIKE operator very often causes unexpected performance behavior because some search terms prevent efficient index usage. That means that there are search terms that can be indexed very well, but others can not. It is the position of the wild card characters that makes all the difference.

The following example uses the % wild card in the middle of the search term:

SELECT first_name, last_name, date_of_birth
  FROM employees
 WHERE UPPER(last_name) LIKE 'WIN%D'

LIKE filters can only use the characters before the first wild card during tree traversal. The remaining characters are just filter predicates that do not narrow the scanned index range. A single LIKE expression can therefore contain two predicate types: (1) the part before the first wild card as an access predicate; (2) the other characters as a filter predicate.

The more selective the prefix before the first wild card is, the smaller the scanned index range becomes. That, in turn, makes the index lookup faster. Figure 2.4 illustrates this relationship using three different LIKE expressions. All three select the same row, but the scanned index range—and thus the performance—is very different.

Figure 2.4 Various LIKE Searches

The first expression has two characters before the wild card. They limit the scanned index range to 18 rows. Only one of them matches the entire LIKE expression—the other 17 are fetched but discarded. The second expression has a longer prefix that narrows the scanned index range down to two rows. With this expression, the database just reads one extra row that is not relevant for the result. The last expression does not have a filter predicate at all: the database just reads the entry that matches the entire LIKE expression.

The opposite case is also possible: a LIKE expression that starts with a wild card. Such a LIKE expression cannot serve as an access predicate. The database has to scan the entire table if there are no other conditions that provide access predicates.

The position of the wild card characters affects index usage—at least in theory. In reality the optimizer creates a generic execution plan when the search term is supplied via bind parameters. In that case, the optimizer has to guess whether or not the majority of executions will have a leading wild card.

Most databases just assume that there is no leading wild card when optimizing a LIKE condition with bind parameter, but this assumption is wrong if the LIKE expression is used for a full-text search. There is, unfortunately, no direct way to tag a LIKE condition as full-text search. The box “Labeling Full-Text LIKE Expressions” shows an attempt that does not work. Specifying the search term without bind parameter is the most obvious solution, but that increases the optimization overhead and opens an SQL injection vulnerability. An effective but still secure and portable solution is to intentionally obfuscate the LIKE condition. “Combining Columns” explains this in detail.

WHERE text_column LIKE '%' || ? || '%'

For the PostgreSQL database, the problem is different because PostgreSQL assumes there is a leading wild card when using bind parameters for a LIKE expression. PostgreSQL just does not use an index in that case. The only way to get an index access for a LIKE expression is to make the actual search term visible to the optimizer. If you do not use a bind parameter but put the search term directly into the SQL statement, you must take other precautions against SQL injection attacks!

Even if the database optimizes the execution plan for a leading wild card, it can still deliver insufficient performance. You can use another part of the where clause to access the data efficiently in that case—see also “Index Filter Predicates Used Intentionally”. If there is no other access path, you might use one of the following proprietary full-text index solutions.