SQL Server Transact-SQL WHERE

Try to avoid WHERE clauses that are non-sargable. The term "sargable" (which is in effect a made-up word) comes from the pseudo-acronym "SARG", which stands for "Search ARGument," which refers to a WHERE clause that compares a column to a constant value. If a WHERE clause is sargable, this means that it can take advantage of an index (assuming one is available) to speed completion of the query. If a WHERE clause is non-sargable, this means that the WHERE clause (or at least part of it) cannot take advantage of an index, instead performing a table/index scan, which may cause the query's performance to suffer.

Non-sargable search arguments in the WHERE clause, such as "IS NULL", "<>", "!=", "!>", "!<", "NOT", "NOT EXISTS", "NOT IN", "NOT LIKE", and "LIKE '%500'" generally prevents (but not always) the query optimizer from using an index to perform a search. In addition, expressions that include a function on a column, expressions that have the same column on both sides of the operator, or comparisons against a column (not a constant), are not sargable.

But not every WHERE clause that has a non-sargable expression in it is doomed to a table/index scan. If the WHERE clause includes both sargable and non-sargable clauses, then at least the sargable clauses can use an index (if one exists) to help access the data quickly.

In many cases, if there is a covering index on the table, which includes all of the columns in the SELECT, JOIN, and WHERE clauses in a query, then the covering index can be used instead of a table/index scan to return a query's data, even if it has a non-sargable WHERE clause. But keep in mind that covering indexes have their own drawbacks, such as producing very wide indexes that increase disk I/O when they are read.

In some cases, it may be possible to rewrite a non-sargable WHERE clause into one that is sargable. For example, the clause:

WHERE SUBSTRING(firstname,1,1) = 'm'

Can be rewritten like this:

WHERE firstname like 'm%'

Both of these WHERE clauses produce the same result, but the first one is non-sargable (it uses a function) and will run slow, while the second one is sargable, and will run much faster.

WHERE clauses that perform some function on a column are non-sargable. On the other hand, if you can rewrite the WHERE clause so that the column and function are separate, then the query can use an available index, greatly boosting performance. For example:

Function Acts Directly on Column, and Index Cannot Be Used:

SELECT member_number, first_name, last_name
FROM members
WHERE DATEDIFF(yy,datofbirth,GETDATE()) > 21

Function Has Been Separated From Column, and an Index Can Be Used:

SELECT member_number, first_name, last_name
FROM members
WHERE dateofbirth < DATEADD(yy,-21,GETDATE())

Each of the above queries produces the same results, but the second query will use an index because the function is not performed directly on the column, as it is in the first example. The moral of this story is to try to rewrite WHERE clauses that have functions so that the function does not act directly on the column.

WHERE clauses that use NOT are not sargable, but can often be rewritten to remove the NOT from the WHERE clause, for example:

WHERE NOT column_name > 5

To:

WERE column_name <= 5

Each of the above clauses produces the same results, but the second one is sargable.

If you don't know if a particular WHERE clause is sargable or non-sargable, check out the query's execution plan in Query Analyzer or Management Studio. Doing this, you can very quickly see if the query will be using index lookups or table/index scans to return your results.

With some careful analysis, and some clever thought, many non-sargable queries can be written so that they are sargable. Your goal for best performance (assuming it is possible) is to get the left side of a search condition to be a single column name, and the right side an easy to look up value. [6.5, 7.0, 2000, 2005] Updated 1-24-2006