Question

Let’s say i have a mysql database table ‘article’ with the following fields: id, title, url, views

I have the field title marked with a FULLTEXT index and the field url marked with a UNIQUE index.

My question is, if i do an ordinary update something like:

UPDATE 'article' SET views = views + 1 WHERE id = {id} 

…will this result in a update of the mysql table indexes?

Is it safe (from speed point of view) to keep the field views in the table article or maybe i should create a separate table, let’s say, article_stats with the following fields: article_id, views ?

Answer 1

Yes, UPDATE statements update indexes. MySQL manages indexes automatically – you never need to worry about updating them manually or triggering an update. If you are asking whether that particular UPDATE will change your indexes which don’t include the views column – no, it wont. Only related indexes get updated.

Keeping a views column is fine, unless you need to track extra information about each view (when it occurred, user who made the view, etc)

Your SQL does contain a syntax error, however. You can’t quote table names like 'article'. If you need to quote a table name (e.g. if it contains a SQL reserved word), then use backticks like this:

UPDATE  `article` SET ...