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COUNT(expr) scalar subquery comparison

Applies to ✅ Open Source Edition   ✅ Express Edition   ✅ Professional Edition   ✅ Enterprise Edition

When comparing a scalar subquery that calculates COUNT(expr) with a single value, then chances are that weaker optimisers might be better off with an equivalent EXISTS predicate as can be seen in this blog post about COUNT(expr) vs EXISTS.

This transformation is only applied under certain circumstances, including:

  • In the absence of UNION and other set operations
  • In the absence of GROUP BY and HAVING

Using Settings.transformPatternsScalarSubqueryCountExpressionGtZero, the following transformations can be achieved:

-- With Settings.transformPatternsScalarSubqueryCountExpressionGtZero active, this:
SELECT
  (SELECT COUNT(col) FROM tab) > 0;

-- ... is transformed into the equivalent expression:
SELECT
  EXISTS (SELECT 1 FROM tab WHERE col IS NOT NULL);

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