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Asked: 2026-06-06T19:07:46+00:00

I’m using the following query to extract the frequent short values from a mediumblob

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I’m using the following query to extract the frequent short values from a mediumblob column :

select bytes, count(*) as n
from pr_value
where bytes is not null && length(bytes)<11 and variable_id=5783
group by bytes order by n desc limit 10;

The problem I have is that this query takes too much time (about 10 seconds with less than 1 million records) :

mysql> select bytes, count(*) as n from pr_value where bytes is not null && length(bytes)<11 and variable_id=5783 group by bytes order by n desc limit 10;
+-------+----+
| bytes | n  |
+-------+----+
| 32    | 21 |
| 27    | 20 |
| 52    | 20 |
| 23    | 19 |
| 25    | 19 |
| 26    | 19 |
| 28    | 19 |
| 29    | 19 |
| 30    | 19 |
| 31    | 19 |
+-------+----+

The table is as follows (unrelated columns not shown) :

mysql> describe pr_value;
+-------------+---------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| Field       | Type          | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+-------------+---------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| product_id  | int(11)       | NO   | PRI | NULL    |       |
| variable_id | int(11)       | NO   | PRI | NULL    |       |
| author_id   | int(11)       | NO   | PRI | NULL    |       |
| bytes       | mediumblob    | YES  | MUL | NULL    |       |
+-------------+---------------+------+-----+---------+-------+

The type is mediumblob because most values are big. Less than 10% are short as the ones I’m looking for with this specific query.

I have the following indexes :

mysql> show index from pr_value;
+----------+------------+----------+--------------+-------------+-----------+-------------+----------+--------+------+------------+---------+---------------+
| Table    | Non_unique | Key_name | Seq_in_index | Column_name | Collation | Cardinality | Sub_part | Packed | Null | Index_type | Comment | Index_comment |
+----------+------------+----------+--------------+-------------+-----------+-------------+----------+--------+------+------------+---------+---------------+
| pr_value |          0 | PRIMARY  |            1 | product_id  | A         |        8961 |     NULL | NULL   |      | BTREE      |         |               |
| pr_value |          0 | PRIMARY  |            2 | variable_id | A         |      842402 |     NULL | NULL   |      | BTREE      |         |               |
| pr_value |          0 | PRIMARY  |            3 | author_id   | A         |      842402 |     NULL | NULL   |      | BTREE      |         |               |
| pr_value |          1 | bytes    |            1 | bytes       | A         |      842402 |       10 | NULL   | YES  | BTREE      |         |               |
| pr_value |          1 | bytes    |            2 | variable_id | A         |      842402 |     NULL | NULL   |      | BTREE      |         |               |
+----------+------------+----------+--------------+-------------+-----------+-------------+----------+--------+------+------------+---------+---------------+

MySQL explains my query like this :

mysql> explain select bytes, count(*) as n from pr_value where bytes is not null && length(bytes)<11 and variable_id=5783 group by bytes order by n desc limit 10; 
+----+-------------+----------+-------+---------------+-------+---------+------+--------+----------------------------------------------+
| id | select_type | table    | type  | possible_keys | key   | key_len | ref  | rows   | Extra                                        |
+----+-------------+----------+-------+---------------+-------+---------+------+--------+----------------------------------------------+
|  1 | SIMPLE      | pr_value | range | bytes         | bytes | 13      | NULL | 421201 | Using where; Using temporary; Using filesort |
+----+-------------+----------+-------+---------------+-------+---------+------+--------+----------------------------------------------+

Note that the condition on the length of the bytes column can be removed without changing the duration.

What can I do to make this query fast ?

Of course i’d prefer not to have to add columns.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    your index on (bytes, variable_id) is not very smart. If you always have a variable_id clause in your queries you should add index with variable_id first :

    (variable_id, bytes)

    It depend on how discriminant variable_id is. But it sould help.

    Another tip is to add a new indexed column with the result of “length(bytes)<11” :

    update pr_value set small = length(bytes)<11;

    Add a new index with (small,variable_id).

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