Question

Here are two sqlite queries:

SELECT * FROM items JOIN licenses ON items.id=licenses.id OR items.type=licenses.type;

This query doesn’t use OR, it uses UNION

SELECT * FROM items JOIN licenses ON items.id=licenses.id UNION SELECT * FROM items JOIN licenses ON items.type=licenses.type;

Assuming I have an index in the licenses table on id and an index in the licenses table on type shouldn’t the first query that uses an OR be only a tiny bit slower?

I am seeing that the first query is approximately 20 times slower than the second query in Sqlite, what is the cause for that?

I would expect the internal plan to look something like this for the first query:

• For each row in the items table:
• Take the value from the id column of the items table and use it to lookup all rows in the licenses table with that id, call that set of matching rows A.
• Take the value from the type column of the items table and use it to lookup all rows in the licenses table with that type, call that set of matching rows A’.
  Combine A and A’ and eliminate any duplicate rows. Add the result in the list of result rows

Answer 1

For doing joins, SQLite supports only nested loop joins on two tables (which can be optimized with indexes).
As explained in The SQLite Query Planner and Query Planning, doing joins with two tables at once is not one of the supported optimizations.