[thelist] How to best index this table?

[rudy]

> How can I best index this table to optimize results?

your choices are

1. no index
2. city
3. state
4. separate indexes on city and state
5. one index on city, state
6. one index on state, city

you've run it with option 1, so you have a baseline

if the optimizer is smart, only 4, 5, and 6 will give better results

5 and 6 are called "covering" indexes, because they contain all the columns
that are needed in the query

4 also covers, but the optimizer has more work to do, grouping pairs of
values

my money's on 6, because state is char and city is varchar

do let us know your other timings

;o)