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Explaining queries

If it is unclear how a given query will perform, clients can retrieve a query’s execution plan from the AQL query optimizer without actually executing the query. Getting the query execution plan from the optimizer is called explaining.

An explain will throw an error if the given query is syntactically invalid. Otherwise, it will return the execution plan and some information about what optimizations could be applied to the query. The query will not be executed.

Explaining a query can be achieved by calling the HTTP REST API or via arangosh. A query can also be explained from the ArangoShell using the ArangoDatabase’s explain method or in detail via ArangoStatement’s explain method.

Inspecting query plans

The explain method of ArangoStatement as shown in the next chapters creates very verbose output. To get a human-readable output of the query plan you can use the explain method on our database object in arangosh. You may use it like this: (we disable syntax highlighting here)

arangosh> db._explain("LET s = SLEEP(0.25) LET t = SLEEP(0.5) RETURN 1", {}, {colors: false});
Show execution results
Hide execution results
Query String (47 chars, cacheable: false):
 LET s = SLEEP(0.25) LET t = SLEEP(0.5) RETURN 1

Execution plan:
 Id   NodeType          Est.   Comment
  1   SingletonNode        1   * ROOT
  4   CalculationNode      1     - LET #2 = 1   /* json expression */   /* const assignment */
  2   CalculationNode      1     - LET s = SLEEP(0.25)   /* simple expression */
  3   CalculationNode      1     - LET t = SLEEP(0.5)   /* simple expression */
  5   ReturnNode           1     - RETURN #2

Indexes used:
 none

Functions used:
 Name    Deterministic   Cacheable   Uses V8
 SLEEP   false           false       false  

Optimization rules applied:
 Id   RuleName
  1   move-calculations-up

The plan contains all execution nodes that are used during a query. These nodes represent different stages in a query. Each stage gets the input from the stage directly above (its dependencies). The plan will show you the estimated number of items (results) for each query stage (under Est.). Each query stage roughly equates to a line in your original query, which you can see under Comment.

Profiling queries

Sometimes when you have a complex query it can be unclear on what time is spent during the execution, even for intermediate ArangoDB users.

By profiling a query it gets executed with special instrumentation code enabled. It gives you all the usual information like when explaining a query, but additionally you get the query profile, runtime statistics and per-node statistics.

To use this in an interactive fashion on the shell you can use the _profileQuery() method on the ArangoDatabase object or use the web interface.

For more information see Profiling Queries.

arangosh> db._profileQuery("LET s = SLEEP(0.25) LET t = SLEEP(0.5) RETURN 1", {}, {colors: false});
Show execution results
Hide execution results
Query String (47 chars, cacheable: false):
 LET s = SLEEP(0.25) LET t = SLEEP(0.5) RETURN 1

Execution plan:
 Id   NodeType          Calls   Items   Runtime [s]   Comment
  1   SingletonNode         1       1       0.00000   * ROOT
  4   CalculationNode       1       1       0.00001     - LET #2 = 1   /* json expression */   /* const assignment */
  2   CalculationNode       1       1       0.27098     - LET s = SLEEP(0.25)   /* simple expression */
  3   CalculationNode       1       1       0.51191     - LET t = SLEEP(0.5)   /* simple expression */
  5   ReturnNode            1       1       0.00001     - RETURN #2

Indexes used:
 none

Optimization rules applied:
 Id   RuleName
  1   move-calculations-up

Query Statistics:
 Writes Exec   Writes Ign   Scan Full   Scan Index   Filtered   Exec Time [s]
           0            0           0            0          0         0.78331

Query Profile:
 Query Stage           Duration [s]
 initializing               0.00001
 parsing                    0.00006
 optimizing ast             0.00001
 loading collections        0.00000
 instantiating plan         0.00002
 optimizing plan            0.00009
 executing                  0.78294
 finalizing                 0.00017

Execution plans in detail

By default, the query optimizer will return what it considers to be the optimal plan. The optimal plan will be returned in the plan attribute of the result. If explain is called with option allPlans set to true, all plans will be returned in the plans attribute instead. The result object will also contain an attribute warnings, which is an array of warnings that occurred during optimization or execution plan creation.

Each plan in the result is an object with the following attributes:

  • nodes: the array of execution nodes of the plan. The list of available node types can be found here
  • estimatedCost: the total estimated cost for the plan. If there are multiple plans, the optimizer will choose the plan with the lowest total cost.
  • collections: an array of collections used in the query
  • rules: an array of rules the optimizer applied. The list of rules can be found here
  • variables: array of variables used in the query (note: this may contain internal variables created by the optimizer)

Here is an example for retrieving the execution plan of a simple query:

arangosh> var stmt = db._createStatement(
........> "FOR user IN _users RETURN user");
arangosh> stmt.explain();
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{ 
  "plan" : { 
    "nodes" : [ 
      { 
        "type" : "SingletonNode", 
        "dependencies" : [ ], 
        "id" : 1, 
        "estimatedCost" : 1, 
        "estimatedNrItems" : 1 
      }, 
      { 
        "type" : "EnumerateCollectionNode", 
        "dependencies" : [ 
          1 
        ], 
        "id" : 2, 
        "estimatedCost" : 3, 
        "estimatedNrItems" : 1, 
        "random" : false, 
        "outVariable" : { 
          "id" : 0, 
          "name" : "user" 
        }, 
        "projections" : [ ], 
        "producesResult" : true, 
        "database" : "_system", 
        "collection" : "_users", 
        "satellite" : false 
      }, 
      { 
        "type" : "ReturnNode", 
        "dependencies" : [ 
          2 
        ], 
        "id" : 3, 
        "estimatedCost" : 4, 
        "estimatedNrItems" : 1, 
        "inVariable" : { 
          "id" : 0, 
          "name" : "user" 
        }, 
        "count" : true 
      } 
    ], 
    "rules" : [ ], 
    "collections" : [ 
      { 
        "name" : "_users", 
        "type" : "read" 
      } 
    ], 
    "variables" : [ 
      { 
        "id" : 0, 
        "name" : "user" 
      } 
    ], 
    "estimatedCost" : 4, 
    "estimatedNrItems" : 1, 
    "initialize" : true, 
    "isModificationQuery" : false 
  }, 
  "warnings" : [ ], 
  "stats" : { 
    "rulesExecuted" : 35, 
    "rulesSkipped" : 0, 
    "plansCreated" : 1 
  }, 
  "cacheable" : true 
}

As the output of explain is very detailed, it is recommended to use some scripting to make the output less verbose:

arangosh> var formatPlan = function (plan) {
........>    return { estimatedCost: plan.estimatedCost,
........>        nodes: plan.nodes.map(function(node) {
........> return node.type; }) }; };
arangosh> formatPlan(stmt.explain().plan);
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{ 
  "estimatedCost" : 4, 
  "nodes" : [ 
    "SingletonNode", 
    "EnumerateCollectionNode", 
    "ReturnNode" 
  ] 
}

If a query contains bind parameters, they must be added to the statement before explain is called:

arangosh> var stmt = db._createStatement(
........> `FOR doc IN @@collection FILTER doc.user == @user RETURN doc`
........> );
arangosh> stmt.bind({ "@collection" : "_users", "user" : "root" });
arangosh> stmt.explain();
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{ 
  "plan" : { 
    "nodes" : [ 
      { 
        "type" : "SingletonNode", 
        "dependencies" : [ ], 
        "id" : 1, 
        "estimatedCost" : 1, 
        "estimatedNrItems" : 1 
      }, 
      { 
        "type" : "IndexNode", 
        "dependencies" : [ 
          1 
        ], 
        "id" : 6, 
        "estimatedCost" : 1.995, 
        "estimatedNrItems" : 1, 
        "outVariable" : { 
          "id" : 0, 
          "name" : "doc" 
        }, 
        "projections" : [ ], 
        "producesResult" : true, 
        "database" : "_system", 
        "collection" : "_users", 
        "satellite" : false, 
        "needsGatherNodeSort" : false, 
        "indexCoversProjections" : false, 
        "indexes" : [ 
          { 
            "id" : "14", 
            "type" : "hash", 
            "fields" : [ 
              "user" 
            ], 
            "selectivityEstimate" : 1, 
            "unique" : true, 
            "sparse" : true, 
            "deduplicate" : true 
          } 
        ], 
        "condition" : { 
          "type" : "n-ary or", 
          "typeID" : 63, 
          "subNodes" : [ 
            { 
              "type" : "n-ary and", 
              "typeID" : 62, 
              "subNodes" : [ 
                { 
                  "type" : "compare ==", 
                  "typeID" : 25, 
                  "excludesNull" : false, 
                  "subNodes" : [ 
                    { 
                      "type" : "attribute access", 
                      "typeID" : 35, 
                      "name" : "user", 
                      "subNodes" : [ 
                        { 
                          "type" : "reference", 
                          "typeID" : 45, 
                          "name" : "doc", 
                          "id" : 0 
                        } 
                      ] 
                    }, 
                    { 
                      "type" : "value", 
                      "typeID" : 40, 
                      "value" : "root", 
                      "vType" : "string", 
                      "vTypeID" : 4 
                    } 
                  ] 
                } 
              ] 
            } 
          ] 
        }, 
        "sorted" : true, 
        "ascending" : true, 
        "reverse" : false, 
        "evalFCalls" : true, 
        "limit" : 0 
      }, 
      { 
        "type" : "ReturnNode", 
        "dependencies" : [ 
          6 
        ], 
        "id" : 5, 
        "estimatedCost" : 2.995, 
        "estimatedNrItems" : 1, 
        "inVariable" : { 
          "id" : 0, 
          "name" : "doc" 
        }, 
        "count" : true 
      } 
    ], 
    "rules" : [ 
      "use-indexes", 
      "remove-filter-covered-by-index", 
      "remove-unnecessary-calculations-2" 
    ], 
    "collections" : [ 
      { 
        "name" : "_users", 
        "type" : "read" 
      } 
    ], 
    "variables" : [ 
      { 
        "id" : 2, 
        "name" : "1" 
      }, 
      { 
        "id" : 0, 
        "name" : "doc" 
      } 
    ], 
    "estimatedCost" : 2.995, 
    "estimatedNrItems" : 1, 
    "initialize" : true, 
    "isModificationQuery" : false 
  }, 
  "warnings" : [ ], 
  "stats" : { 
    "rulesExecuted" : 35, 
    "rulesSkipped" : 0, 
    "plansCreated" : 1 
  }, 
  "cacheable" : true 
}

In some cases the AQL optimizer creates multiple plans for a single query. By default only the plan with the lowest total estimated cost is kept, and the other plans are discarded. To retrieve all plans the optimizer has generated, explain can be called with the option allPlans set to true.

In the following example, the optimizer has created two plans:

arangosh> var stmt = db._createStatement(
........> "FOR user IN _users FILTER user.user == 'root' RETURN user");
arangosh> stmt.explain({ allPlans: true }).plans.length;
Show execution results
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1

To see a slightly more compact version of the plan, the following transformation can be applied:

arangosh> stmt.explain({ allPlans: true }).plans.map(
........> function(plan) { return formatPlan(plan); });
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[ 
  { 
    "estimatedCost" : 2.995, 
    "nodes" : [ 
      "SingletonNode", 
      "IndexNode", 
      "ReturnNode" 
    ] 
  } 
]

explain will also accept the following additional options:

  • maxPlans: limits the maximum number of plans that are created by the AQL query optimizer
  • optimizer.rules: an array of to-be-included or to-be-excluded optimizer rules can be put into this attribute, telling the optimizer to include or exclude specific rules. To disable a rule, prefix its name with a -, to enable a rule, prefix it with a +. There is also a pseudo-rule all, which will match all optimizer rules.

The following example disables all optimizer rules but remove-redundant-calculations:

arangosh> stmt.explain({ optimizer: {
........> rules: [ "-all", "+remove-redundant-calculations" ] } });
Show execution results
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{ 
  "plan" : { 
    "nodes" : [ 
      { 
        "type" : "SingletonNode", 
        "dependencies" : [ ], 
        "id" : 1, 
        "estimatedCost" : 1, 
        "estimatedNrItems" : 1 
      }, 
      { 
        "type" : "EnumerateCollectionNode", 
        "dependencies" : [ 
          1 
        ], 
        "id" : 2, 
        "estimatedCost" : 3, 
        "estimatedNrItems" : 1, 
        "random" : false, 
        "outVariable" : { 
          "id" : 0, 
          "name" : "user" 
        }, 
        "projections" : [ ], 
        "producesResult" : true, 
        "database" : "_system", 
        "collection" : "_users", 
        "satellite" : false 
      }, 
      { 
        "type" : "CalculationNode", 
        "dependencies" : [ 
          2 
        ], 
        "id" : 3, 
        "estimatedCost" : 4, 
        "estimatedNrItems" : 1, 
        "expression" : { 
          "type" : "compare ==", 
          "typeID" : 25, 
          "excludesNull" : false, 
          "subNodes" : [ 
            { 
              "type" : "attribute access", 
              "typeID" : 35, 
              "name" : "user", 
              "subNodes" : [ 
                { 
                  "type" : "reference", 
                  "typeID" : 45, 
                  "name" : "user", 
                  "id" : 0 
                } 
              ] 
            }, 
            { 
              "type" : "value", 
              "typeID" : 40, 
              "value" : "root", 
              "vType" : "string", 
              "vTypeID" : 4 
            } 
          ] 
        }, 
        "outVariable" : { 
          "id" : 2, 
          "name" : "1" 
        }, 
        "canThrow" : false, 
        "expressionType" : "simple" 
      }, 
      { 
        "type" : "FilterNode", 
        "dependencies" : [ 
          3 
        ], 
        "id" : 4, 
        "estimatedCost" : 5, 
        "estimatedNrItems" : 1, 
        "inVariable" : { 
          "id" : 2, 
          "name" : "1" 
        } 
      }, 
      { 
        "type" : "ReturnNode", 
        "dependencies" : [ 
          4 
        ], 
        "id" : 5, 
        "estimatedCost" : 6, 
        "estimatedNrItems" : 1, 
        "inVariable" : { 
          "id" : 0, 
          "name" : "user" 
        }, 
        "count" : true 
      } 
    ], 
    "rules" : [ ], 
    "collections" : [ 
      { 
        "name" : "_users", 
        "type" : "read" 
      } 
    ], 
    "variables" : [ 
      { 
        "id" : 2, 
        "name" : "1" 
      }, 
      { 
        "id" : 0, 
        "name" : "user" 
      } 
    ], 
    "estimatedCost" : 6, 
    "estimatedNrItems" : 1, 
    "initialize" : true, 
    "isModificationQuery" : false 
  }, 
  "warnings" : [ ], 
  "stats" : { 
    "rulesExecuted" : 3, 
    "rulesSkipped" : 32, 
    "plansCreated" : 1 
  }, 
  "cacheable" : true 
}

The contents of an execution plan are meant to be machine-readable. To get a human-readable version of a query’s execution plan, the following commands can be used:

arangosh> var query = "FOR doc IN mycollection FILTER doc.value > 42 RETURN doc";
arangosh> require("@arangodb/aql/explainer").explain(query, {colors:false});
Show execution results
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Query String (56 chars, cacheable: true):
 FOR doc IN mycollection FILTER doc.value > 42 RETURN doc

Execution plan:
 Id   NodeType                  Est.   Comment
  1   SingletonNode                1   * ROOT
  2   EnumerateCollectionNode    302     - FOR doc IN mycollection   /* full collection scan */
  3   CalculationNode            302       - LET #1 = (doc.`value` > 42)   /* simple expression */   /* collections used: doc : mycollection */
  4   FilterNode                 302       - FILTER #1
  5   ReturnNode                 302       - RETURN doc

Indexes used:
 none

Optimization rules applied:
 none

The above command prints the query’s execution plan in the ArangoShell directly, focusing on the most important information.

Gathering debug information about a query

If an explain provides no suitable insight into why a query does not perform as expected, it may be reported to the ArangoDB support. In order to make this as easy as possible, there is a built-in command in ArangoShell for packaging the query, its bind parameters and all data required to execute the query elsewhere.

The command will store all data in a file with a configurable filename:

arangosh> var query = "FOR doc IN mycollection FILTER doc.value > 42 RETURN doc";
arangosh> require("@arangodb/aql/explainer").debugDump("/tmp/query-debug-info", query);
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Entitled users can send the generated file to the ArangoDB support to facilitate reproduction and debugging.

If a query contains bind parameters, they will need to specified along with the query string:

arangosh> var query = "FOR doc IN @@collection FILTER doc.value > @value RETURN doc";
arangosh> var bind = { value: 42, "@collection": "mycollection" };
arangosh> require("@arangodb/aql/explainer").debugDump("/tmp/query-debug-info", query, bind);
Show execution results
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It is also possible to include example documents from the underlying collection in order to make reproduction even easier. Example documents can be sent as they are, or in an anonymized form. The number of example documents can be specified in the examples options attribute, and should generally be kept low. The anonymize option will replace the contents of string attributes in the examples with “XXX”. It will however not replace any other types of data (e.g. numeric values) or attribute names. Attribute names in the examples will always be preserved because they may be indexed and used in queries:

arangosh> var query = "FOR doc IN @@collection FILTER doc.value > @value RETURN doc";
arangosh> var bind = { value: 42, "@collection": "mycollection" };
arangosh> var options = { examples: 10, anonymize: true };
arangosh> require("@arangodb/aql/explainer").debugDump("/tmp/query-debug-info", query, bind, options);
Show execution results
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