Discuss Pros and Cons of Indexing PaymentMethod
Discuss Pros and Cons of Indexing PaymentMethod
PaymentsTable:
Pros of Indexing PaymentMethod:
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Faster Query Performance
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Improves the speed of SELECT queries that filter or group by
PaymentMethod, especially in large tables.
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Improved Grouping & Aggregation
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Speeds up operations like
GROUP BY PaymentMethodor reports summarizing by payment type.
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Helps with JOINs and WHERE Clauses
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If you frequently JOIN on
PaymentMethodwith another table, the index will improve performance.
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Better Performance on Sorted Results
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When sorting by
PaymentMethod, an index can eliminate the need for additional sorting steps.
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SQL Query:
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM Payments WHERE PaymentMethod = 'Credit Card';
Output:
Cons of Indexing PaymentMethod:
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Extra Storage Space
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Every index consumes additional disk space, and adding too many indexes can bloat the database.
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Slower INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE
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Indexes must be updated each time data changes. This slightly slows down operations like inserts or updates.
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Low Selectivity
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If
PaymentMethodhas only a few distinct values (like "Credit Card", "Cash", "UPI"), the index may not be very useful because the database might still scan many rows.
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Maintenance Overhead
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Indexes require maintenance, especially in large databases with frequent writes.
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