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Software Engineering vocabulary · Databases and Persistence

Slow query

Meaning in software engineering, with examples

nounCore term

In software engineering, slow query means: A query that takes longer than an agreed limit to finish, slowing down the application and using up database resources.

In Turkish: yavaş sorgu

How it is used

Databases can record them in a slow query log: MySQL has slow_query_log with long_query_time, and PostgreSQL uses log_min_duration_statement. Teams review the slowest queries regularly and fix them with indexes, rewrites or caching.

Example sentences

  1. The slow query log shows the same report query taking over 30 seconds every hour.

  2. One slow query held a lock and blocked the whole checkout flow.

Common collocations

  • slow query log
  • find slow queries
  • fix a slow query
  • top slow queries
  • execution planThe step-by-step strategy the database chooses to run a query, showing which indexes it uses, how tables are joined and how many rows it expects.
  • query tuningThe work of making slow queries faster by studying their execution plans and then adding indexes, rewriting SQL or changing database settings.
  • indexThe position number of an item in an array or list. In most languages counting starts at zero, so the first item has index 0.
  • full table scanReading every row of a table to find the ones a query needs, instead of jumping straight to them through an index.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Databases and Persistence

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