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 Posted by Alexander Kuznetsov on 06/09/06 03:14 
Baihao Yuan wrote: 
> Hi, 
> 
> I created a composite index (lastname, firstname). I know the following 
> queries will use this index: 
> 
> WHERE lastname = ... 
> WHERE lastname = ... AND firstname = ... 
> 
> Also this won't use the index: 
> WHERE firstname = ... 
> 
 
Not necessarily. Consider the following query: 
 
select lastname, firstname from some_table where firstname = ... 
 
It will use the index, and, more to the point, it will not touch the 
table at all - the index already has all the information the query 
needs. It is called "index covering".
 
  
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