Question

My situation:

• the query searches around 90,000 vehicles
• the query takes long each time
• I already have indexes on all the fields being JOINed.

How can I optimise it?

Here is the query:

SELECT vehicles.make_id,
       vehicles.fuel_id,
       vehicles.body_id,
       vehicles.transmission_id,
       vehicles.colour_id,
       vehicles.mileage,
       vehicles.vehicle_year,
       vehicles.engine_size,
       vehicles.trade_or_private,
       vehicles.doors,
       vehicles.model_id,
       Round(3959 * Acos(Cos(Radians(51.465436)) *
                         Cos(Radians(vehicles.gps_lat)) *
                                           Cos(
                                           Radians(vehicles.gps_lon) - Radians(
                                           -0.296482)) +
                               Sin(
                                      Radians(51.465436)) * Sin(
                               Radians(vehicles.gps_lat)))) AS distance
FROM   vehicles
       INNER JOIN vehicles_makes
         ON vehicles.make_id = vehicles_makes.id
       LEFT JOIN vehicles_models
         ON vehicles.model_id = vehicles_models.id
       LEFT JOIN vehicles_fuel
         ON vehicles.fuel_id = vehicles_fuel.id
       LEFT JOIN vehicles_transmissions
         ON vehicles.transmission_id = vehicles_transmissions.id
       LEFT JOIN vehicles_axles
         ON vehicles.axle_id = vehicles_axles.id
       LEFT JOIN vehicles_sub_years
         ON vehicles.sub_year_id = vehicles_sub_years.id
       INNER JOIN members
         ON vehicles.member_id = members.id
       LEFT JOIN vehicles_categories
         ON vehicles.category_id = vehicles_categories.id
WHERE  vehicles.status = 1
       AND vehicles.date_from < 1330349235
       AND vehicles.date_to > 1330349235
       AND vehicles.type_id = 1
       AND ( vehicles.price >= 0
             AND vehicles.price <= 1000000 )  

Here is the vehicle table schema:

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `vehicles` (
  `id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `number_plate` varchar(100) NOT NULL,
  `type_id` int(11) NOT NULL,
  `make_id` int(11) NOT NULL,
  `model_id` int(11) NOT NULL,
  `model_sub_type` varchar(250) NOT NULL,
  `engine_size` decimal(12,1) NOT NULL,
  `vehicle_year` int(11) NOT NULL,
  `sub_year_id` int(11) NOT NULL,
  `mileage` int(11) NOT NULL,
  `fuel_id` int(11) NOT NULL,
  `transmission_id` int(11) NOT NULL,
  `price` decimal(12,2) NOT NULL,
  `trade_or_private` tinyint(4) NOT NULL,
  `postcode` varchar(25) NOT NULL,
  `gps_lat` varchar(50) NOT NULL,
  `gps_lon` varchar(50) NOT NULL,
  `img1` varchar(100) NOT NULL,
  `img2` varchar(100) NOT NULL,
  `img3` varchar(100) NOT NULL,
  `img4` varchar(100) NOT NULL,
  `img5` varchar(100) NOT NULL,
  `img6` varchar(100) NOT NULL,
  `img7` varchar(100) NOT NULL,
  `img8` varchar(100) NOT NULL,
  `img9` varchar(100) NOT NULL,
  `img10` varchar(100) NOT NULL,
  `is_featured` tinyint(4) NOT NULL,
  `body_id` int(11) NOT NULL,
  `colour_id` int(11) NOT NULL,
  `doors` tinyint(4) NOT NULL,
  `axle_id` int(11) NOT NULL,
  `category_id` int(11) NOT NULL,
  `contents` text NOT NULL,
  `date_created` int(11) NOT NULL,
  `date_edited` int(11) NOT NULL,
  `date_from` int(11) NOT NULL,
  `date_to` int(11) NOT NULL,
  `member_id` int(11) NOT NULL,
  `inactive_id` int(11) NOT NULL,
  `status` tinyint(4) NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
  KEY `type_id` (`type_id`),
  KEY `make_id` (`make_id`),
  KEY `model_id` (`model_id`),
  KEY `fuel_id` (`fuel_id`),
  KEY `transmission_id` (`transmission_id`),
  KEY `body_id` (`body_id`),
  KEY `colour_id` (`colour_id`),
  KEY `axle_id` (`axle_id`),
  KEY `category_id` (`category_id`),
  KEY `vehicle_year` (`vehicle_year`),
  KEY `mileage` (`mileage`),
  KEY `status` (`status`),
  KEY `date_from` (`date_from`),
  KEY `date_to` (`date_to`),
  KEY `trade_or_private` (`trade_or_private`),
  KEY `doors` (`doors`),
  KEY `price` (`price`),
  KEY `engine_size` (`engine_size`),
  KEY `sub_year_id` (`sub_year_id`),
  KEY `member_id` (`member_id`),
  KEY `date_created` (`date_created`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM  DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 AUTO_INCREMENT=136237 ;

The EXPLAIN:

1   SIMPLE  vehicles    ref     type_id,make_id,status,date_from,date_to,price,mem...   type_id     4   const   85695   Using where
1   SIMPLE  members     index   PRIMARY     PRIMARY     4   NULL    3   Using where; Using index; Using join buffer
1   SIMPLE  vehicles_makes  eq_ref  PRIMARY     PRIMARY     4   tvs.vehicles.make_id    1   Using index
1   SIMPLE  vehicles_models     eq_ref  PRIMARY     PRIMARY     4   tvs.vehicles.model_id   1   Using index
1   SIMPLE  vehicles_fuel   eq_ref  PRIMARY     PRIMARY     4   tvs.vehicles.fuel_id    1   Using index
1   SIMPLE  vehicles_transmissions  eq_ref  PRIMARY     PRIMARY     4   tvs.vehicles.transmission_id    1   Using index
1   SIMPLE  vehicles_axles  eq_ref  PRIMARY     PRIMARY     4   tvs.vehicles.axle_id    1   Using index
1   SIMPLE  vehicles_sub_years  eq_ref  PRIMARY     PRIMARY     4   tvs.vehicles.sub_year_id    1   Using index
1   SIMPLE  vehicles_categories     eq_ref  PRIMARY     PRIMARY     4   tvs.vehicles.category_id    1   Using index

Answer 1

Improving the WHERE clause

Your EXPLAIN shows that MySQL is only utilizing one index (type_id) for selecting the rows that match the WHERE clause, even though you have multiple criteria in the clause.

To be able to utilize an index for all of the criteria in the WHERE clause, and to reduce the size of the result set as quickly as possible, add a multi-column index on the following columns on the vehicles table:

(status, date_from, date_to, type_id, price)

The columns should be in order of highest cardinality to least.

For example, vehicles.date_from is likely to have more distinct values than status, so put the date_from column before status, like this:

(date_from, date_to, price, type_id, status)

This should reduce the rows returned in the first part of the query execution, and should be demonstrated with a lower row count on the first line of the EXPLAIN result.

You will also notice that MySQL will use the multi-column index for the WHERE in the EXPLAIN result. If, by chance, it doesn’t, you should hint or force the multi-column index.

Removing the unnecessary JOINs

It doesn’t appear that you are using any fields in any of the joined tables, so remove the joins. This will remove all of the additional work of the query, and get you down to one, simple execution plan (one line in the EXPLAIN result).

Each JOINed table causes an additional lookup per row of the result set. So, if the WHERE clause selects 5,000 rows from vehicles, since you have 8 joins to vehicles, you will have 5,000 * 8 = 40,000 lookups. That’s a lot to ask from your database server.