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Software Engineering vocabulary · Databases and Persistence

N+1 query problem

Meaning in software engineering, with examples

nounCommon term

In software engineering, N+1 query problem means: A pattern where one query loads a list and a separate extra query is issued for each of its N items.

In Turkish: N+1 sorgu sorunu

How it is used

Often discussed with object-relational mapping. It concerns repeated database round trips, not an arithmetic error.

Example sentences

  1. The N+1 query problem appeared when the page loaded each author's name separately.

    The initial list query was followed by one lookup for every displayed item.

  2. We fixed the N+1 query problem by fetching the related records in one batch.

    Batching removes repeated lookups without requiring the page to show fewer records.

Common collocations

  • detect the N+1 query problem
  • solve the N+1 query problem
  • ORMObject-relational mapping: a library that lets developers work with database rows as objects in their programming language and generates the SQL for them.
  • slow queryA query that takes longer than an agreed limit to finish, slowing down the application and using up database resources.

More terms: Databases and Persistence

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