Keywords: Expensive queries, importance of avoiding, how to avoid

# Prevent the user from issuing expensive queries

Some applications have complete control over the queries that they issue; the queries are built into the applications. Other applications allow users to construct queries by filling in fields on a form. Any time you let users construct ad-hoc queries, you risk the possibility that the query a user constructs will be one like the following:

    SELECT * FROM ExtremelyHugeTable
    ORDER BY unIndexedColumn

This statement has no WHERE clause. It will require a full table scan. To make matters worse, Derby will then have to order the data. Most likely, the user does not want to browse through all 100,000 rows, and does not care whether the rows are all in order.

Do everything you can to avoid table scans and sorting of large results (such as table scans).

Some things you can do to disallow such runaway queries:

- Use client-side checking to make sure some minimal fields are always filled in. Eliminate or disallow queries that cannot use indexes and are not optimizable. In other words, force an optimizable WHERE clause by making sure that the columns on which an index is built are included in the WHERE clause of the query. Reduce or disallow DISTINCT clauses (which often require sorting) on large tables.
- For queries with large results, do not let the database do the ordering. Retrieve data in chunks (provide a Next button to allow the user to retrieve the next chunk, if desired), and order the data in the application.
- Do not use SELECT DISTINCT to populate lists; instead, maintain a separate table of the unique items.

Parent topic: Avoiding table scans of large tables
Related concepts
Always create indexes