Live briefing

Everything about Sargable

Concept in databases

In relational databases, a condition in a query is said to be sargable if the DBMS engine can take advantage of an index to speed up the execution of the query. The term is derived from a contraction of Search ARGument ABLE. It was first used by IBM researchers as a contraction of Search ARGument, and has come to mean simply "can be looked up by an index."1 Wikipedia →

🧭 Start here: a 6-step reading path

Read the overview: SargableA 5-minute orientation
Go sideways: Null (SQL)A closely related topic
Go sideways: SQL syntaxA closely related topic

📖 Definitions

Adjective Able to use indexes to speed up execution.

🗂️ The subject at a glance

🏆 Landmark papers (most cited)

No matching papers found.

📚 Books worth reading

Open Library didn't respond; try again in a moment.

🔗 Related topics

Null (SQL) In the SQL database query language, null or NULL is a special marker used to indicate that a data value does not exist in the database. Introduced by the…
SQL syntax The syntax of the SQL programming language is defined and maintained by ISO/IEC SC 32 as part of ISO/IEC 9075. This standard is not freely available. Despite…
Select (SQL) The SQL SELECT statement returns a result set of rows, from one or more tables. A SELECT statement retrieves zero or more rows from one or more database…
Correlated subquery In a SQL database query, a correlated subquery (also known as a synchronized subquery) is a subquery (a query nested inside another query) that uses values…
Window function (SQL) In SQL, a window function or analytic function is a function which uses values from one or multiple rows to return a value for each row. (This contrasts…
Database index A database index is a data structure that improves the speed of data retrieval operations on a database table at the cost of additional writes and storage…
Join (SQL) A join clause in the Structured Query Language (SQL) combines columns from one or more tables into a new table. The operation corresponds to a join operation…
Prepared statement In database management systems (DBMS), a prepared statement, parameterized statement, (not to be confused with parameterized query) is a feature where…