在某些情况下，or条件可以避免全表扫描的。

1 .where 语句里面如果带有or条件, myisam表能用到索引， innodb不行。

1)myisam表：

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `a` (

`id` int(1) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,

`uid` int(11) NOT NULL,

`aNum` char(20) DEFAULT NULL,

PRIMARY KEY (`id`),

KEY `uid` (`uid`)

) ENGINE=MyISAM  DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 AUTO_INCREMENT=6 ;

mysql> explain select * from a where id=1 or uid =2;

+----+-------------+-------+-------------+---------------+-------------+---------+------+------+---------------------------------------+

| id | select_type | table | type        | possible_keys | key         | key_len | ref  | rows | Extra                                 |

+----+-------------+-------+-------------+---------------+-------------+---------+------+------+---------------------------------------+

|  1 | SIMPLE      | a     | index_merge | PRIMARY,uid   | PRIMARY,uid | 4,4     | NULL |    2 | Using union(PRIMARY,uid); Using where |

+----+-------------+-------+-------------+---------------+-------------+---------+------+------+---------------------------------------+

1 row in set (0.00 sec)

2)innodb表：

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `a` (

`id` int(1) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,

`uid` int(11) NOT NULL,

`aNum` char(20) DEFAULT NULL,

PRIMARY KEY (`id`),

KEY `uid` (`uid`)

) ENGINE=InnoDB  DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 AUTO_INCREMENT=6 ;

2 .必须所有的or条件都必须是独立索引：

+-------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

| Table | Create Table

+-------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

| a     | CREATE TABLE `a` (

`id` int(1) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,

`uid` int(11) NOT NULL,

`aNum` char(20) DEFAULT NULL,

PRIMARY KEY (`id`)

) ENGINE=MyISAM AUTO_INCREMENT=6 DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 |

+-------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1 row in set (0.00 sec)

explain查看：

mysql> explain select * from a where id=1 or uid =2;

+----+-------------+-------+------+---------------+------+---------+------+------+-------------+

| id | select_type | table | type | possible_keys | key  | key_len | ref  | rows | Extra       |

+----+-------------+-------+------+---------------+------+---------+------+------+-------------+

|  1 | SIMPLE      | a     | ALL  | PRIMARY       | NULL | NULL    | NULL |    5 | Using where |

+----+-------------+-------+------+---------------+------+---------+------+------+-------------+

1 row in set (0.00 sec)

全表扫描了。

3. 用UNION替换OR (适用于索引列)

通常情况下, 用UNION替换WHERE子句中的OR将会起到较好的效果. 对索引列使用OR将造成全表扫描.

注意, 以上规则只针对多个索引列有效. 如果有column没有被索引, 查询效率可能会因为你没有选择OR而降低.

在下面的例子中, LOC_ID 和REGION上都建有索引.

高效:

select loc_id , loc_desc , region from location where loc_id = 10

union

select loc_id , loc_desc , region  from location where region = "melbourne"

低效:

select loc_id , loc desc , region from location where loc_id = 10 or region = "melbourne"

如果你坚持要用OR, 那就需要返回记录最少的索引列写在最前面.

4. 用in来替换or

这是一条简单易记的规则，但是实际的执行效果还须检验，在oracle8i下，两者的执行路径似乎是相同的． 低效: select…. from location where loc_id = 10 or loc_id = 20 or loc_id = 30 高效 select… from location where loc_in  in (10,20,30);

mysql>  explain select * from a where id=1 or uid =2;

+----+-------------+-------+------+---------------+------+---------+------+------+-------------+

| id | select_type | table | type | possible_keys | key  | key_len | ref  | rows | Extra       |

+----+-------------+-------+------+---------------+------+---------+------+------+-------------+

|  1 | SIMPLE      | a     | ALL  | PRIMARY,uid   | NULL | NULL    | NULL |    5 | Using where |

+----+-------------+-------+------+---------------+------+---------+------+------+-------------+

1 row in set (0.00 sec)