3.5. Join Operations

PostgreSQL supports three join operations: nested loop join, merge join and hash join. The nested loop join and the merge join in PostgreSQL have several variations.

In the following, we assume that the reader is familiar with the basic behavior of these three joins.

If you are unfamiliar with these terms, see the references:

References

  1. Abraham Silberschatz, Henry F. Korth, and S. Sudarshan, “Database System Concepts”, McGraw-Hill Education, ISBN-13: 978-0073523323

  2. Thomas M. Connolly, and Carolyn E. Begg, “Database Systems”, Pearson, ISBN-13: 978-0321523068

However, as there is not much explanation on the hybrid hash join with skew supported by PostgreSQL, it will be explained in more detail here.

Section Contents

Note that the three join methods supported by PostgreSQL can perform all join operations, not only INNER JOIN, but also LEFT/RIGHT OUTER JOIN, FULL OUTER JOIN, and so on. However, for simplicity, we focus on the NATURAL INNER JOIN in this chapter.