Question

SELECT ... WHERE COL IN(A,B) 

or 

SELECT ... WHERE (COL = A or COL = B)

I’m trying to find out what are the differences between the two constructs?
Would there be significant performance gains either way if utilized on resultsets that are nearing the 1 million mark?

Answer 1

mysql> describe select * from users where id = 1 or id = 2;
+----+-------------+-------+-------+---------------+---------+---------+------+------+-------------+
| id | select_type | table | type  | possible_keys | key     | key_len | ref  | rows | Extra       |
+----+-------------+-------+-------+---------------+---------+---------+------+------+-------------+
|  1 | SIMPLE      | users | range | PRIMARY       | PRIMARY | 4       | NULL |    2 | Using where |
+----+-------------+-------+-------+---------------+---------+---------+------+------+-------------+
1 row in set (0.01 sec)

mysql> describe select * from users where id in (1,2);
+----+-------------+-------+-------+---------------+---------+---------+------+------+-------------+
| id | select_type | table | type  | possible_keys | key     | key_len | ref  | rows | Extra       |
+----+-------------+-------+-------+---------------+---------+---------+------+------+-------------+
|  1 | SIMPLE      | users | range | PRIMARY       | PRIMARY | 4       | NULL |    2 | Using where |
+----+-------------+-------+-------+---------------+---------+---------+------+------+-------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

Judging from DESCRIBE statement’s output – they are identical.