Join Cardinality

Following up my “Hacking for Skew” article from a couple of days ago, Chinar Aliyev has written an article about a method for persuading the optimizer to calculate the correct cardinality estimate without using any undocumented, or otherwise dubious, mechanisms. His method essentially relies on the optimizer’s mechanism for estimating join cardinality when there are histograms at both ends of the join so I thought I’d write a short note describing the simplest possible example of the calculation – an example where the query is a single column equi-join with no nulls in either column and a perfect frequency histograms at both ends of the join.  (For a detailed description of more general cases I always refer to the work done by Alberto Dell’Era a few years ago). We start with two data sets that exhibit a strong skew in their data distributions:

rem
rem     Script:         freq_hist_join_02.sql
rem     Author:         Jonathan Lewis
rem     Dated:          Oct 2018
rem

execute dbms_random.seed(0)

create table t1
nologging
as
with generator as (
        select
                rownum id
        from dual
        connect by
                level <= 1e4 -- > comment to avoid WordPress format issue
)
select
        rownum                                  id,
        trunc(3 * abs(dbms_random.normal))      n1
from
        generator       v1
;

create table t2
nologging
as
with generator as (
        select
                rownum id
        from dual
        connect by
                level <= 1e4 -- > comment to avoid WordPress format issue
)
select
        rownum                                  id,
        trunc(3 * abs(dbms_random.normal))      n1
from
        generator       v1
;

begin
        dbms_stats.gather_table_stats(
                ownname     => null,
                tabname     => 'T1',
                method_opt  => 'for all columns size 254'
        );
        dbms_stats.gather_table_stats(
                ownname     => null,
                tabname     => 'T2',
                method_opt  => 'for all columns size 254'
        );
end;
/

I’ve generated two tables of 10,000 randomly generated values using the dbms_random.normal() function, but I’ve scaled the value up by a factor of three and taken the absolute value – which has given me a range of 12 distinct integer values with a nicely skewed distribution. Then I’ve gathered stats requesting histograms of up to 254 buckets. Since I’ve tested this only on versions from 11.2.0.4 onwards this means I’ll get a perfect histogram on the n1 columns on both tables.

Now I’m going run a query that reports the values and frequencies from the two tables by querying user_tab_histograms using a variant of an analytic query I published a long time ago to convert the cumulative frequencies recorded as the endpoint values into simple frequencies. If, for some reason, this query doesn’t run very efficiently in your tests you could always /*+ materialize */ the two factored subqueries (CTEs – common table expressions):

prompt  =======================================================================
prompt  Multiply and sum matching frequencies. An outer join is NOT needed
prompt  because rows that don't match won't contributed to the join cardinality
prompt  =======================================================================

break on report skip 1
compute sum of product on report
column product format 999,999,999

with f1 as (
select
        endpoint_value                                                            value,
        endpoint_number - lag(endpoint_number,1,0) over(order by endpoint_number) frequency
from
        user_tab_histograms
where
        table_name  = 'T1'
and     column_name = 'N1'
order by
        endpoint_value
),
f2 as (
select
        endpoint_value                                                            value,
        endpoint_number - lag(endpoint_number,1,0) over(order by endpoint_number) frequency
from
        user_tab_histograms
where
        table_name  = 'T2'
and     column_name = 'N1'
order by
        endpoint_value
)
select
        f1.value, f1.frequency, f2.frequency, f1.frequency * f2.frequency product
from
        f1, f2
where
        f2.value = f1.value
;


     VALUE  FREQUENCY  FREQUENCY      PRODUCT
---------- ---------- ---------- ------------
         0       2658       2532    6,730,056
         1       2341       2428    5,683,948
         2       1828       1968    3,597,504
         3       1305       1270    1,657,350
         4        856        845      723,320
         5        513        513      263,169
         6        294        249       73,206
         7        133        117       15,561
         8         40         54        2,160
         9         23         17          391
        10          5          5           25
        11          4          2            8
                                 ------------
sum                                18,746,698

As you can see, the two columns do have a highly skewed data distribution. The pattern of the two data sets is similar though the frequencies aren’t identical, of course. The total I get from this calculation is (I claim) the cardinality (rows) estimate that the optimizer will produce for doing an equi-join on these two tables – so let’s see the test:

set serveroutput off
alter session set statistics_level = all;
alter session set events '10053 trace name context forever';

select
        count(*)
from
        t1, t2
where
        t1.n1 = t2.n1
;

select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor(null,null,'allstats last'));
alter session set statistics_level = typical;
alter session set events '10053 trace name context off';

And the resulting output:

Session altered.
Session altered.


  COUNT(*)
----------
  18746698


PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SQL_ID  0wxytnyqs4b5j, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select  count(*) from  t1, t2 where  t1.n1 = t2.n1

Plan hash value: 906334482
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id  | Operation           | Name | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows |   A-Time   | Buffers |  OMem |  1Mem | Used-Mem |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|   0 | SELECT STATEMENT    |      |      1 |        |      1 |00:00:03.23 |      40 |       |       |          |
|   1 |  SORT AGGREGATE     |      |      1 |      1 |      1 |00:00:03.23 |      40 |       |       |          |
|*  2 |   HASH JOIN         |      |      1 |     18M|     18M|00:00:02.96 |      40 |  2616K|  2616K| 2098K (0)|
|   3 |    TABLE ACCESS FULL| T1   |      1 |  10000 |  10000 |00:00:00.01 |      20 |       |       |          |
|   4 |    TABLE ACCESS FULL| T2   |      1 |  10000 |  10000 |00:00:00.01 |      20 |       |       |          |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
   2 - access("T1"."N1"="T2"."N1")

As we can see, the estimate for the hash join is “18M” which is in the right ballpark but, in its current format, isn’t entirely helpful which is why I’ve enabled the 10053 trace to get an exact figure from the trace file, and this is what we see:

***********************
Best so far:  Table#: 0  cost: 4.352468  card: 9487.000000  bytes: 28461.000000
              Table#: 1  cost: 378.482370  card: 18467968.000000  bytes: 110807808.000000
***********************

The optimizer’s estimate is exactly the sum of the products of the frequencies of matching values from the (frequency) histogram data. There is a simple rationale for this – it gets the right answer.

For each row in t1 with value ‘X’ the (frequency) histogram on t2 tells Oracle how many rows will appear in the join, so multiplying the frequency of ‘X’ in t1 by the frequency of ‘X’ in t2 tells Oracle how many rows the ‘X’s will contribute to the join. Repeat for every distinct value that appears in both (frequency) histograms and sum the results.

As a refinement on this (very simple) example, let’s delete data from the two tables so that we have rows in t1 that won’t join to anything in t2, and vice versa – then re-gather stats, query the histograms, and check the new prediction. We want to check whether a value that appears in the t1 histogram contributes to the join cardinality estimate even if there are no matching values in the t2 histogram (and vice versa):

delete from t1 where n1 = 4;
delete from t2 where n1 = 6;

execute dbms_stats.gather_table_stats(user,'t1',method_opt=>'for all columns size 254', no_invalidate=>false)
execute dbms_stats.gather_table_stats(user,'t2',method_opt=>'for all columns size 254', no_invalidate=>false)

with f1 as (
select
        endpoint_value                                                            value,
        endpoint_number - lag(endpoint_number,1,0) over(order by endpoint_number) frequency
from
        user_tab_histograms
where
        table_name  = 'T1'
and     column_name = 'N1'
order by
        endpoint_value
),
f2 as (
select
        endpoint_value                                                            value,
        endpoint_number - lag(endpoint_number,1,0) over(order by endpoint_number) frequency
from
        user_tab_histograms
where
        table_name  = 'T2'
and     column_name = 'N1'
order by
        endpoint_value
)
select
        f1.value, f1.frequency, f2.frequency, f1.frequency * f2.frequency product
from
        f1, f2
where
        f2.value = f1.value
;


set serveroutput off
alter session set statistics_level = all;
alter session set events '10053 trace name context forever';

select
        count(*)
from
        t1, t2
where
        t1.n1 = t2.n1
;

select * from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor(null,null,'allstats last'));
alter session set statistics_level = typical;
alter session set events '10053 trace name context off';

And the output – with a little cosmetic tidying:

856 rows deleted.
249 rows deleted.

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.


     VALUE  FREQUENCY  FREQUENCY      PRODUCT
---------- ---------- ---------- ------------
         0       2658       2532    6,730,056
         1       2341       2428    5,683,948
         2       1828       1968    3,597,504
         3       1305       1270    1,657,350
         5        513        513      263,169
         7        133        117       15,561
         8         40         54        2,160
         9         23         17          391
        10          5          5           25
        11          4          2            8
                                 ------------
sum                                17,950,172


Session altered.
Session altered.


  COUNT(*)
----------
  17950172


PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SQL_ID  0wxytnyqs4b5j, child number 0
-------------------------------------
select  count(*) from  t1, t2 where  t1.n1 = t2.n1

Plan hash value: 906334482
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id  | Operation           | Name | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows |   A-Time   | Buffers |  OMem |  1Mem | Used-Mem |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|   0 | SELECT STATEMENT    |      |      1 |        |      1 |00:00:02.89 |      40 |       |       |          |
|   1 |  SORT AGGREGATE     |      |      1 |      1 |      1 |00:00:02.89 |      40 |       |       |          |
|*  2 |   HASH JOIN         |      |      1 |     17M|     17M|00:00:02.61 |      40 |  2616K|  2616K| 2134K (0)|
|   3 |    TABLE ACCESS FULL| T1   |      1 |   9144 |   9144 |00:00:00.01 |      20 |       |       |          |
|   4 |    TABLE ACCESS FULL| T2   |      1 |   9751 |   9751 |00:00:00.01 |      20 |       |       |          |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
   2 - access("T1"."N1"="T2"."N1")


From the 10053 trace file:
***********************
Best so far:  Table#: 0  cost: 4.340806  card: 9144.000000  bytes: 27432.000000
              Table#: 1  cost: 368.100010  card: 17950172.000000  bytes: 107701032.000000
***********************

You can see from the frequency histogram report that we “lost” values 4 and 6 from the report; then the total from the report matches the actual number of rows returned by the query, and the cardinality estimate in the plan is again in the right ballpark – with the trace file showing an exact match.

I’ve run this test on 11.2.0.4,  12.1.0.2,  12.2.0.1 and  18.3.0.0 (which generated a different set of random values) – and there’s an anomaly that appears in 11.2.0.4 (though maybe that should be “disappeared from”): the optimizer’s estimate for the cardinality was a little larger than the value generated in the query against user_tab_histograms. [Edit: Now explained (probably), see below]

Conclusion:

For an incredibly simple class of queries with perfect frequency histograms there’s a very simple way to calculate the cardinality estimate that the optimizer will predict. Match up rows from the two frequency histograms, multiply the corresponding frequencies (making sure you don’t multiply the cumulative frequencies) and sum.

This is, of course, only a tiny step in the direction of seeing how Oracle uses histograms and covers only a type of query that is probably too simple to appear in a production system, but it’s a basis on which I may build in future notes over the next few weeks.

Update (5th Oct)

The “error” in the 11g calculation irritated me a little, and I woke up this morning with an idea about the solution. In 10.2.0.4 Oracle changed the way the optimizer calculated for a predicate that used a value that did not appear in the frequency histogram: it did the arithmetic for  “half the least frequently occurring value”. So I thought I’d run up a test where for my “sum of products” query I emulated this model. I had to change my query to an “ANSI”-style full outer join, and here it is:

with f1 as (
select 
        endpoint_value                                                            value, 
        endpoint_number - lag(endpoint_number,1,0) over(order by endpoint_number) frequency
from 
        user_tab_histograms 
where 
        table_name  = 'T1' 
and     column_name = 'N1'
),
f2 as (
select 
        endpoint_value                                                            value, 
        endpoint_number - lag(endpoint_number,1,0) over(order by endpoint_number) frequency
from 
        user_tab_histograms 
where 
        table_name  = 'T2' 
and     column_name = 'N1'
)
select
        f1.value, f2.value,
        nvl(f1.frequency, 0)                t1_frequency,
        nvl(f2.frequency, 0)                t2_frequency,
        nvl(f1.frequency, &t1_least / 2) *
        nvl(f2.frequency, &t2_least / 2)    product
from
        f1
full outer join
        f2
on
        f2.value = f1.value
order by
        coalesce(f1.value, f2.value)
;

Running this code, and noting that the lowest frequency in t1 was 4, while the lowest frequency in t2 was 2, I got the following results (with the 10053 trace file summary following the output)

     VALUE      VALUE T1_FREQUENCY T2_FREQUENCY      PRODUCT
---------- ---------- ------------ ------------ ------------
         0          0         2658         2532    6,730,056
         1          1         2341         2428    5,683,948
         2          2         1828         1968    3,597,504
         3          3         1305         1270    1,657,350
                    4            0          845        1,690
         5          5          513          513      263,169
         6                     294            0          294
         7          7          133          117       15,561
         8          8           40           54        2,160
         9          9           23           17          391
        10         10            5            5           25
        11         11            4            2            8
                      ------------ ------------ ------------
sum                           9144         9751   17,952,156


Join Card:  17952157.000000 = outer (9751.000000) * inner (9144.000000) * sel (0.201341)
Join Card - Rounded: 17952157 Computed: 17952157.00
 

That’s a pretty good match to the trace file result – and the difference of 1 may simply be a rounding error (despite the trace files text suggesting it is accurate to 6 d.p.). Maybe one day I’ll wake up with an inspired guess about that difference – but since it’s relevant only to 11g I’m not going to worry about it anymore.

Footnote

Following an exchange of email with Chinar Aliyev, it’s fairly clear that the “half the least frequency” can actually be derived as “table.num_rows * column.density”.