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Asked: 2026-05-19T10:12:44+00:00

I have a stored proc that runs a query with a HUGE where clause.

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I have a stored proc that runs a query with a HUGE where clause. In itself, the WHERE clause is very simple. It looks like

SELECT a, b, c FROM table
WHERE (cond1) OR (cond2) OR (cond3) OR (cond4)

where cond1, cond2, cond3 and cond4 all represent some requirement from our users.

My question is regarding the query performance: would it make sense to execute 4 separeate queries (each with one of the conditions cond{1..4}), insert the results into a temporary table, and then finally select everything from that temporary table?

What I’m wondering is, whether dbms’ optimize for such situations.

FWIW, i’m using Syabse ASE – TDS 5.5.

Thanks
Harshath

PS: Please don’t ask me to “do my own benchmarking”. I will of couse be doing that eventually. What i’m really looking for links pointing to the internals of such optimizations, if any. TY 🙂

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    The reason split-up queries can be faster is that the smaller separate queries can be resolved using indexes, where the big query results in a table scan.

    The first question is: does the table have indexes? If not, a table scan will always be required, and splitting the query into N parts will just cause N table scans.

    If there are indexes, you’d have to test if your the optimizer decides to use them. If the query optimizer already uses them, there is no point in splitting the query.

    If there are indexes, and the query optimizer does not use them, and your testing shows that it would be faster to use them, you can benefit from splitting the query.

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