What's the best way to get accurate and fast queries in PostgreSQL for a longest prefix match?
Is it:
A.) select * from table where column in (subselect) ; B.) select * from table where strpos(column,column2) = 1 order by length(column2) desc limit 1 ; C.) select * from table where column ~ column2 order by length(column2) desc limit 1
I'm planning to use in an update. Any ideas?
I wouldn't know of a function doing this out of the box in PostgreSQL.
A recursive CTE would be the key element for a rather elegant solution (available in PostgreSQL 8.4 or later).
I am assuming a table filter
to hold the filter strings:
CREATE TABLE filter (f_id int, string text);
And a table tbl
to be search for the longest match:
CREATE TABLE tbl(t_id int, col text);
WITH RECURSIVE
f AS (SELECT f_id, string, length(string) AS flen FROM filter)
,t AS (SELECT t_id, col, length(col) AS tlen FROM tbl)
,x AS (
SELECT t.t_id, f.f_id, t.col, f.string
,2 AS match, LEAST(flen, tlen) AS len
FROM t
JOIN f ON left(t.col, 1) = left(f.string, 1)
UNION ALL
SELECT t_id, f_id, col, string, match + 1, len
FROM x
WHERE left(col, match) = left(string, match)
AND match <= len
)
SELECT DISTINCT
f_id
,string
,first_value(col) OVER w AS col
,first_value(t_id) OVER w AS t_id
,(first_value(match) OVER w -1) AS longest_match
FROM x
WINDOW w AS (PARTITION BY f_id ORDER BY match DESC)
ORDER BY 2,1,3,4;
Detailed explanation how the final SELECT works in this related answer.
Working demo on sqlfiddle.
You did not define which match to pick from a set of equally long matches. I am picking one arbitrary winner from ties.
I'm planning to use in an update.
PostgreSQL 9.1 introduced data modifying CTEs, so you can use this in an UPDATE
statement directly.