[Solved] MySQL vs Web Server for processing data
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MySQL vs Web Server for processing data

Database type:

I was wondering if it's faster to process data in MySQL or a server language like PHP or Python. I'm sure native functions like ORDER will be faster in MySQL due to indexing, caching, etc, but actually calculating the rank (including ties returning multiple entries as having the same rank):

Sample SQL

SELECT TORCH_ID,
    distance AS thisscore,
    (SELECT COUNT(distinct(distance))+1 FROM torch_info WHERE distance > thisscore) AS rank
    FROM torch_info ORDER BY rank

Server

...as opposed to just doing a SELECT TORCH_ID FROM torch_info ORDER BY score DESC and then figure out rank in PHP on the web server.

How to optimize this SQL query?

The following recommendations will help you in your SQL tuning process.
You'll find 3 sections below:

  1. Description of the steps you can take to speed up the query.
  2. The optimal indexes for this query, which you can copy and create in your database.
  3. An automatically re-written query you can copy and execute in your database.
The optimization process and recommendations:
  1. Create Optimal Indexes (modified query below): The recommended indexes are an integral part of this optimization effort and should be created before testing the execution duration of the optimized query.
Optimal indexes for this query:
ALTER TABLE `torch_info` ADD INDEX `torch_info_idx_distance` (`distance`);
The optimized query:
SELECT
        torch_info.TORCH_ID,
        torch_info.distance AS thisscore,
        (SELECT
            COUNT(DISTINCT (torch_info.distance)) + 1 
        FROM
            torch_info 
        WHERE
            torch_info.distance > thisscore) AS rank 
    FROM
        torch_info 
    ORDER BY
        rank

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* original question posted on StackOverflow here.