<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"> <HTML ><HEAD ><TITLE >CLUSTER</TITLE ><META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Modular DocBook HTML Stylesheet Version 1.79"><LINK REV="MADE" HREF="mailto:pgsql-docs@postgresql.org"><LINK REL="HOME" TITLE="PostgreSQL 8.0.11 Documentation" HREF="index.html"><LINK REL="UP" TITLE="SQL Commands" HREF="sql-commands.html"><LINK REL="PREVIOUS" TITLE="CLOSE" HREF="sql-close.html"><LINK REL="NEXT" TITLE="COMMENT" HREF="sql-comment.html"><LINK REL="STYLESHEET" TYPE="text/css" HREF="stylesheet.css"><META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"><META NAME="creation" CONTENT="2007-02-02T03:57:22"></HEAD ><BODY CLASS="REFENTRY" ><DIV CLASS="NAVHEADER" ><TABLE SUMMARY="Header navigation table" WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TH COLSPAN="5" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="bottom" >PostgreSQL 8.0.11 Documentation</TH ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="sql-close.html" ACCESSKEY="P" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="sql-close.html" >Fast Backward</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="60%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="bottom" ></TD ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="sql-comment.html" >Fast Forward</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="sql-comment.html" ACCESSKEY="N" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ></TABLE ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"></DIV ><H1 ><A NAME="SQL-CLUSTER" ></A >CLUSTER</H1 ><DIV CLASS="REFNAMEDIV" ><A NAME="AEN37954" ></A ><H2 >Name</H2 >CLUSTER -- cluster a table according to an index</DIV ><A NAME="AEN37957" ></A ><DIV CLASS="REFSYNOPSISDIV" ><A NAME="AEN37959" ></A ><H2 >Synopsis</H2 ><PRE CLASS="SYNOPSIS" >CLUSTER <TT CLASS="REPLACEABLE" ><I >indexname</I ></TT > ON <TT CLASS="REPLACEABLE" ><I >tablename</I ></TT > CLUSTER <TT CLASS="REPLACEABLE" ><I >tablename</I ></TT > CLUSTER</PRE ></DIV ><DIV CLASS="REFSECT1" ><A NAME="AEN37964" ></A ><H2 >Description</H2 ><P > <TT CLASS="COMMAND" >CLUSTER</TT > instructs <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >PostgreSQL</SPAN > to cluster the table specified by <TT CLASS="REPLACEABLE" ><I >tablename</I ></TT > based on the index specified by <TT CLASS="REPLACEABLE" ><I >indexname</I ></TT >. The index must already have been defined on <TT CLASS="REPLACEABLE" ><I >tablename</I ></TT >. </P ><P > When a table is clustered, it is physically reordered based on the index information. Clustering is a one-time operation: when the table is subsequently updated, the changes are not clustered. That is, no attempt is made to store new or updated rows according to their index order. If one wishes, one can periodically recluster by issuing the command again. </P ><P > When a table is clustered, <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >PostgreSQL</SPAN > remembers on which index it was clustered. The form <TT CLASS="COMMAND" >CLUSTER <TT CLASS="REPLACEABLE" ><I >tablename</I ></TT ></TT > reclusters the table on the same index that it was clustered before. </P ><P > <TT CLASS="COMMAND" >CLUSTER</TT > without any parameter reclusters all the tables in the current database that the calling user owns, or all tables if called by a superuser. (Never-clustered tables are not included.) This form of <TT CLASS="COMMAND" >CLUSTER</TT > cannot be called from inside a transaction or function. </P ><P > When a table is being clustered, an <TT CLASS="LITERAL" >ACCESS EXCLUSIVE</TT > lock is acquired on it. This prevents any other database operations (both reads and writes) from operating on the table until the <TT CLASS="COMMAND" >CLUSTER</TT > is finished. </P ></DIV ><DIV CLASS="REFSECT1" ><A NAME="AEN37983" ></A ><H2 >Parameters</H2 ><P ></P ><DIV CLASS="VARIABLELIST" ><DL ><DT ><TT CLASS="REPLACEABLE" ><I >indexname</I ></TT ></DT ><DD ><P > The name of an index. </P ></DD ><DT ><TT CLASS="REPLACEABLE" ><I >tablename</I ></TT ></DT ><DD ><P > The name (possibly schema-qualified) of a table. </P ></DD ></DL ></DIV ></DIV ><DIV CLASS="REFSECT1" ><A NAME="AEN37996" ></A ><H2 >Notes</H2 ><P > In cases where you are accessing single rows randomly within a table, the actual order of the data in the table is unimportant. However, if you tend to access some data more than others, and there is an index that groups them together, you will benefit from using <TT CLASS="COMMAND" >CLUSTER</TT >. If you are requesting a range of indexed values from a table, or a single indexed value that has multiple rows that match, <TT CLASS="COMMAND" >CLUSTER</TT > will help because once the index identifies the heap page for the first row that matches, all other rows that match are probably already on the same heap page, and so you save disk accesses and speed up the query. </P ><P > During the cluster operation, a temporary copy of the table is created that contains the table data in the index order. Temporary copies of each index on the table are created as well. Therefore, you need free space on disk at least equal to the sum of the table size and the index sizes. </P ><P > Because <TT CLASS="COMMAND" >CLUSTER</TT > remembers the clustering information, one can cluster the tables one wants clustered manually the first time, and setup a timed event similar to <TT CLASS="COMMAND" >VACUUM</TT > so that the tables are periodically reclustered. </P ><P > Because the planner records statistics about the ordering of tables, it is advisable to run <A HREF="sql-analyze.html" ><I >ANALYZE</I ></A > on the newly clustered table. Otherwise, the planner may make poor choices of query plans. </P ><P > There is another way to cluster data. The <TT CLASS="COMMAND" >CLUSTER</TT > command reorders the original table using the ordering of the index you specify. This can be slow on large tables because the rows are fetched from the heap in index order, and if the heap table is unordered, the entries are on random pages, so there is one disk page retrieved for every row moved. (<SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >PostgreSQL</SPAN > has a cache, but the majority of a big table will not fit in the cache.) The other way to cluster a table is to use </P><PRE CLASS="PROGRAMLISTING" >CREATE TABLE <TT CLASS="REPLACEABLE" ><I >newtable</I ></TT > AS SELECT <TT CLASS="REPLACEABLE" ><I >columnlist</I ></TT > FROM <TT CLASS="REPLACEABLE" ><I >table</I ></TT > ORDER BY <TT CLASS="REPLACEABLE" ><I >columnlist</I ></TT >;</PRE ><P> which uses the <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >PostgreSQL</SPAN > sorting code in the <TT CLASS="LITERAL" >ORDER BY</TT > clause to create the desired order; this is usually much faster than an index scan for unordered data. You then drop the old table, use <TT CLASS="COMMAND" >ALTER TABLE ... RENAME</TT > to rename <TT CLASS="REPLACEABLE" ><I >newtable</I ></TT > to the old name, and recreate the table's indexes. However, this approach does not preserve OIDs, constraints, foreign key relationships, granted privileges, and other ancillary properties of the table — all such items must be manually recreated. </P ></DIV ><DIV CLASS="REFSECT1" ><A NAME="AEN38019" ></A ><H2 >Examples</H2 ><P > Cluster the table <TT CLASS="LITERAL" >employees</TT > on the basis of its index <TT CLASS="LITERAL" >emp_ind</TT >: </P><PRE CLASS="PROGRAMLISTING" >CLUSTER emp_ind ON emp;</PRE ><P> </P ><P > Cluster the <TT CLASS="LITERAL" >employees</TT > table using the same index that was used before: </P><PRE CLASS="PROGRAMLISTING" >CLUSTER emp;</PRE ><P> </P ><P > Cluster all tables in the database that have previously been clustered: </P><PRE CLASS="PROGRAMLISTING" >CLUSTER;</PRE ><P> </P ></DIV ><DIV CLASS="REFSECT1" ><A NAME="AEN38030" ></A ><H2 >Compatibility</H2 ><P > There is no <TT CLASS="COMMAND" >CLUSTER</TT > statement in the SQL standard. </P ></DIV ><DIV CLASS="REFSECT1" ><A NAME="AEN38034" ></A ><H2 >See Also</H2 ><A HREF="app-clusterdb.html" ><I ><I >clusterdb</I ></I ></A ></DIV ><DIV CLASS="NAVFOOTER" ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"><TABLE SUMMARY="Footer navigation table" WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="sql-close.html" ACCESSKEY="P" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="index.html" ACCESSKEY="H" >Home</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="sql-comment.html" ACCESSKEY="N" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" >CLOSE</TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="sql-commands.html" ACCESSKEY="U" >Up</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" >COMMENT</TD ></TR ></TABLE ></DIV ></BODY ></HTML >