Sphinx lets you generate several results from the same data simultaneously, again using a fixed amount of memory. Compared to the traditional SQL approach of either running two queries (and hoping that some data stays in the cache between runs) or creating a temporary table for each search result set, this yields a noticeable improvement.

For example, assume you need per-day, per-week, and per-month reports over a period of time. To generate these with MySQL you’d have to run three queries with different GROUP BY clauses, processing the source data three times. Sphinx, however, can process the underlying data once and accumulate all three reports in parallel. Sphinx does this with a multi-query mechanism. Instead of issuing queries one by one, you batch several queries and submit them in one request:

SetSortMode ( SPH_SORT_EXTENDED, "price desc" );
$cl->AddQuery ( "ipod" );
$cl->SetGroupBy ( "category_id", SPH_GROUPBY_ATTR, "@count desc" );
$cl->AddQuery ( "ipod" );
$cl->RunQueries ( );
?>

Sphinx will analyze the request, identify query parts it can combine, and parallelize the queries where possible.

For example, Sphinx might notice that only the sorting and grouping modes differ, and that the queries are otherwise the same. This is the case in the sample code just shown, where the sorting is by price but the grouping is by category_id. Sphinx will create several sorting queues to process these queries. When it runs the queries, it will retrieve the rows once and submit them to all queues. Compared to running the queries one by one, this eliminates several redundant full-text search or full scan operations.

Note that generating parallel result sets, although it’s a common and important optimization, is only a particular case of the more generalized multi-query mechanism. It is not the only possible optimization. The rule of thumb is to combine queries in one request where possible, which generally allows Sphinx to apply internal optimizations. Even if Sphinx can’t parallelize the queries, it still saves network round-trips. And if Sphinx adds more optimizations in the future, your queries will use them automatically with no further changes.

Source of Information : OReIlly High Performance MySQL Second Edition

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