Re: EntityListIterator.getResultsSizeAfterPartialList() vs. delegator.getCountByCondition(...)

Posted by Scott Gray-2 on
URL: http://ofbiz.116.s1.nabble.com/EntityListIterator-getResultsSizeAfterPartialList-vs-delegator-getCountByCondition-tp206959p206963.html

Hi David,

Always doing the separate query would certainly be easier, I think  
I'll go with that.

> You mentioned: "regardless of the database you are using it is  
> ALWAYS faster to retrieve a resultset limited." By that do you mean  
> including just Derby and MySQL, or have you tried other databases?  
> Also, was the JDBC driver setup to have the ResultSet backed by a  
> cursor in the database? As for MySQL and Derby, I'm not sure how  
> good a job with this sort of thing I'd expect. Things are a little  
> different with Postgres and I'd expect better results there, and a  
> lot different with Oracle and I'd expect way better results there.

Thanks for calling that out, saying ALWAYS was probably getting a bit  
carried away :-)
I've been trying things out with Derby, Postgres and MySQL.  By  
default both Postgres[1] and MySQL[2] load the entire ResultSet into  
memory (Derby does not but calling last() is expensive), the only way  
to get hold of a cursor is to specify TYPE_FOWARD_ONLY and  
CONCUR_READ_ONLY but I've read of potential problems with this  
approach in MySQL[3].  And of course it removes the ability to call  
last() to get the size of the result but that can be negated by using  
the separate count query.  It also causes getPartialList to fail  
because you can't jump forward in the resultset (MySQL and Derby, I  
haven't tried Postgres on that yet), but we could also negate that by  
detecting a forward only result set and using next() only to get to  
where we want to be.

So with all that said here is my revised solution:
1.  Always use a separate count query to get the resultset size in the  
ELI
2.  Switch pagination queries to use performFindList rather than  
performFind and set maxRows, also switch the resultset type to  
FORWARD_ONLY for both services, I think it is rare that we would want  
to jump around a resultset except to get the size.  Setting maxRows  
will cause no harm if using a cursor but if not it'll speed up queries  
quite a bit for large resultsets and reduce the memory consumed  
(unless the viewIndex is significantly high)
3.  Detect forward only result sets in the ELI and change  
getPartialList to iterate to the desired position rather than using  
absolute().
4.  MySQL requires you to set the fetchSize to Integer.MIN_VALUE but  
SQLProcessor overrides this if the setting is less than zero so change  
that to allow any int value to pass through.

I'll keep testing with MySQL to see if I can reproduce the problem  
mentioned in [3].  Even if it is a problem and I have to go without  
the cursor, using maxRows should still result in some improvements.

Thanks David, your feedback is always appreciated and often helps me  
to look at things in a different light.

Regards
Scott

[1] http://jdbc.postgresql.org/documentation/83/query.html#query-with-cursor
[2] http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/connector-j-reference-implementation-notes.html 
  (Skip down to the ResultSet paragraph)
[3] http://javaquirks.blogspot.com/2007/12/mysql-streaming-result-set.html 
  (2nd to last sentence)

On 28/08/2009, at 3:41 AM, David E Jones wrote:

>
> Scott,
>
> The steps you mentioned sound good. One possible simplification is  
> that you could always do a separate query in the  
> getResultSizeAfterPartialList method. IMO it is safe to assume that  
> the data may be large if the EntityListIterator is being used  
> explicitly. In other words, if the programmers knows there won't be  
> much data they'll just get a List back instead of an ELI.
>
> You mentioned: "regardless of the database you are using it is  
> ALWAYS faster to retrieve a resultset limited." By that do you mean  
> including just Derby and MySQL, or have you tried other databases?  
> Also, was the JDBC driver setup to have the ResultSet backed by a  
> cursor in the database? As for MySQL and Derby, I'm not sure how  
> good a job with this sort of thing I'd expect. Things are a little  
> different with Postgres and I'd expect better results there, and a  
> lot different with Oracle and I'd expect way better results there.
>
> -David
>
>
> On Aug 27, 2009, at 2:57 AM, Scott Gray wrote:
>
>> I can't do that at the moment because I've been modifying the same  
>> script repeatedly to test different situations and it's gotten  
>> pretty messy.  But as soon as I've found a temporary solution to  
>> the problem we're having I'll come back to it, clean it up and post  
>> it so the discussion can continue with more people running tests.
>>
>> What I have been able to determine so far is that regardless of the  
>> database you are using it is ALWAYS faster to retrieve a resultset  
>> limited to the records you are actually going to use.  The problem  
>> is that for pagination we "need" (I'm not sure how badly) to know  
>> the full size of the resultset.  It turns out there is a magic  
>> number of records where it becomes faster to do a separate count  
>> query but only if you are using EntityFindOptions.setMaxRows(int)  
>> on your ELI along with it.  On my machine it is somewhere between  
>> 25,000-50,000 records.
>>
>> Keep in mind also that this is only really a problem for screens  
>> where we paginate through resultsets, in most other cases we always  
>> use the entire resultset.
>>
>> It was taking too long to test different table sizes so I ended up  
>> just filling a table in MySql with 1,000,000 records and simulated  
>> paginating through it (each result is the same query run 5 times  
>> and the times are in milliseconds):
>>
>> Here's the result for the way we currently do it with an ELI, there  
>> is only one result because because it takes too long to test and  
>> the result doesn't really vary regardless of the viewIndex being 50  
>> or 500,000:
>> 0 viewIndex: min 13610, max 37307, avg 27386.2, total 136931
>>
>> Here's the result using an ELI with maxRows and a separate count  
>> query:
>> 50 viewIndex: min 363, max 377, avg 371.8, total 1859
>> 100 viewIndex: min 372, max 462, avg 413.4, total 2067
>> 200 viewIndex: min 385, max 412, avg 394.4, total 1972
>> 400 viewIndex: min 378, max 412, avg 392.2, total 1961
>> 800 viewIndex: min 373, max 1044, avg 510, total 2550
>> 1600 viewIndex: min 390, max 405, avg 397.4, total 1987
>> 3200 viewIndex: min 402, max 433, avg 418.6, total 2093
>> 6400 viewIndex: min 425, max 504, avg 449.8, total 2249
>> 12800 viewIndex: min 459, max 648, avg 536, total 2680
>> 25600 viewIndex: min 570, max 1173, avg 705.8, total 3529
>> 51200 viewIndex: min 756, max 1144, avg 958.8, total 4794
>> 102400 viewIndex: min 1252, max 2810, avg 1576, total 7880
>> 204800 viewIndex: min 2123, max 10120, avg 5253.6, total 26268
>> 409600 viewIndex: min 4212, max 10837, avg 7011, total 35055
>>
>> That's for a 1,000,000 records but the ELI by itself is much faster  
>> for me on small resultsets but gets progressively slower as the  
>> resultset's size increases.
>>
>> Another issue I encountered is that if I run the first portion of  
>> this test twice in two separate browser windows at the same time  
>> then an out of memory error occurs and the instance locks up until  
>> I restart it.  Should we be able to recover from an out of memory  
>> error or should just we just concentrate on avoiding them?
>>
>> The only solution I can think of so far is to:
>> 1.  Add the ability for OFBiz to learn when a query becomes high  
>> volume i.e. it's resultsize begins crossing the configurable magic  
>> number threshold
>> 2.  Add a new method for pagination to the delegator that can  
>> decide whether or not to set maxRows based on #1 for the  
>> EntityListIterator that it will return
>> 3.  Provide the EntityListIterator with the information required to  
>> be able to perform a separate count query (it needs the delegator  
>> or dao + the where and having conditions or we could just give it a  
>> SQLProcessor ready to go)
>> 4.  Change the ELI's getResultSizeAfterPartialList to perform a  
>> count query if maxRows was set and the info from #3 was provided
>> 5.  For forms that use the generic performFind service for  
>> paginated results, switch them over to using the performFindList  
>> service and change it's implementation to use the new delegator  
>> method from #2
>>
>> Any thoughts?
>>
>> Thanks
>> Scott
>>
>>
>> On 27/08/2009, at 3:22 AM, Adrian Crum wrote:
>>
>>> Scott,
>>>
>>> It would be helpful if you could post your script in a Jira issues  
>>> so we can run it against various databases. I would like to try it  
>>> on ours.
>>>
>>> -Adrian
>>>
>>> --- On Tue, 8/25/09, Scott Gray <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>>
>>>> From: Scott Gray <[hidden email]>
>>>> Subject: EntityListIterator.getResultsSizeAfterPartialList() vs.  
>>>> delegator.getCountByCondition(...)
>>>> To: [hidden email]
>>>> Date: Tuesday, August 25, 2009, 9:04 PM
>>>> Hi all,
>>>>
>>>> We've had a few slow query problems lately and I've
>>>> narrowed it down to the ResultSet.last() method call in
>>>> EntityListIterator when performed on large result
>>>> sets.  I switched the FindGeneric.groovy script in
>>>> webtools to use findCountByCondition instead of
>>>> getResultSizeAfterPartialList and the page load time went
>>>> from 40-50s down to 2-3s for a result containing 700,000
>>>> records.
>>>>
>>>> Based on that I assumed there was probably some magic
>>>> number depending on your system where it becomes more
>>>> efficient to do a separate count query rather than use the
>>>> ResultSet so I put together a quick test to find out.
>>>> I threw together a script that repeatedly adds 500 rows to
>>>> the jobsandbox and then outputs the average time taken of 3
>>>> attempts to get the list size for each method.  Here's
>>>> a graph of the results using embedded Derby: http://imgur.com/ieR7m
>>>>
>>>> So unless the magic number lies somewhere in the first 500
>>>> records it looks to me like it always more efficient to do a
>>>> separate count query.
>>>>
>>>> It makes me wonder if we should be taking a different
>>>> approach to pagination in the form widget and in
>>>> general.  Any thoughts?
>>>>
>>>> Thanks
>>>> Scott
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>


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