In SQL Server, the indexed view is a hellscape of limitations. But I need one. I have a formatter SQLCLR function that creates a prettified version of a domain key – users want to be able to search on substrings of that prettified version. So I need a full-text index on a persisted calculated column or a materialized view.
However, the formatter depends on data stored in multiple tables.
So this works fine for a view, but not for a persisted computed column because those can't query from multiple tables.
My SQLCLR method is precise and deterministic, so it should be eligible for use in indexed views, but indexed views can't have SQLCLR in their index keys.
I could re-implement my formatter using the T-SQL FORMAT
function… but FORMAT
is also incompatible with indexed views.
Can indexed views do anything? Ever?
I'm open to the "roll your own materialized view with triggers" approach if anybody can refer me to a good document on best practices for doing that. Last time I tried, it spiraled out of control and there was tremendous duplication between the code for insert and update and the initialization.
Is there some way I'm missing to get performant text searches on calculated data on a few million rows, without using a materialized/indexed view or a persisted calculated column?
The formatter does not perform data access. However, the data I need to feed into the formatter for it to be useful will be coming from multiple tables (with a nice regular join), hence I can't solve this problem with persisted computed columns. I can't key the SQLCLR column, so I can't use it in a fulltext index.
I thought this would be simple. Persisted columns and indexed views are designed to perform calculations on write, and to properly implement the observer pattern so that changes to their dependencies are reflected on the calculated value.
Best Answer
It actually is kind of miserable when you think of an indexed view as a solution, only to find your use case hits on one of the many limitations of indexed views (I'm looking at you,
LEFT JOIN
).You're right that you can't include the SQLCLR in the index keys of the indexed view. However, you can include it in the
SELECT
list of the view definition, which will persist the value to disk. So you can at least avoid the cost of calculating the value on the fly when reading from the table.In the AdventureWorks2014 sample database, I created this view on the delightfully named
Person.Person
table:Note: I was too lazy to write my own CLR function, so this one is from this Q&A.
I can make that an indexed view by clustering it on
BusinessEntityID
:Looking for a specific set of rows in the table produces an index scan (execution plan link). Notice the lack of a
Compute Scalar
operator, which would normally be used to produce the hash value. Since the hash is persisted to disk in the indexed view, that's not necessary:I had to use a
NOEXPAND
hint to get it to use the view.You'll notice the warnings in the plan are due to the fact that the whole table was scanned in order to find those values, since there is no index keyed on
FirstNameHash
.Unfortunately, trying to create a nonclustered index on this persisted value fails:
This is because SQL Server doesn't trust us:
I imagine the same limitation exists for fulltext indexes, although I haven't tried it.
The takeaway from all this, as you mentioned in your own post, is that you're kind of stuck here. Really your only option is to: