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<span id="openzim-page-title" class="mw-page-title-main"><span class="mw-page-title-main">Nested loop join</span></span>
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<p>A <b>nested loop join</b> is a naive <a href="Algorithm" title="Algorithm">algorithm</a> that joins two relations by using two nested <a href="Loop_(computing)" class="mw-redirect" title="Loop (computing)">loops</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-1"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>1<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> Join operations are important for <a href="Database" title="Database">database</a> management.
</p>
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<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Algorithm">Algorithm</h2></div>
<p>Two relations <span class="mwe-math-element mwe-math-element-inline"><span class="mwe-math-mathml-inline mwe-math-mathml-a11y" style="display: none;"><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="{\displaystyle R}">
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<annotation encoding="application/x-tex">{\displaystyle R}</annotation>
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</math></span><img src="./4b0bfb3769bf24d80e15374dc37b0441e2616e33.svg" class="mwe-math-fallback-image-inline mw-invert skin-invert" aria-hidden="true" style="vertical-align: -0.338ex; width:1.764ex; height:2.176ex;" alt="{\displaystyle R}" loading="lazy"></span> and <span class="mwe-math-element mwe-math-element-inline"><span class="mwe-math-mathml-inline mwe-math-mathml-a11y" style="display: none;"><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="{\displaystyle S}">
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<mi>S</mi>
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<annotation encoding="application/x-tex">{\displaystyle S}</annotation>
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</math></span><img src="./4611d85173cd3b508e67077d4a1252c9c05abca2.svg" class="mwe-math-fallback-image-inline mw-invert skin-invert" aria-hidden="true" style="vertical-align: -0.338ex; width:1.499ex; height:2.176ex;" alt="{\displaystyle S}" loading="lazy"></span> are joined as follows:
</p>
<pre><b>algorithm</b> nested_loop_join <b>is</b>
<b>for each</b> tuple <i>r</i> in <i>R</i> <b>do</b>
<b>for each</b> tuple <i>s</i> in <i>S</i> <b>do</b>
<b>if</b> <i>r</i> and <i>s</i> satisfy the join condition <b>then</b>
<b>yield</b> tuple <<i>r</i>,<i>s</i>>
</pre>
<p>This algorithm will involve n<sub>r</sub>*b<sub>s</sub>+ b<sub>r</sub> block transfers and n<sub>r</sub>+b<sub>r</sub> seeks, where b<sub>r</sub> and b<sub>s</sub> are number of blocks in relations R and S respectively, and n<sub>r</sub> is the number of tuples in relation R.
</p><p>The algorithm runs in <span class="mwe-math-element mwe-math-element-inline"><span class="mwe-math-mathml-inline mwe-math-mathml-a11y" style="display: none;"><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="{\displaystyle O(|R||S|)}">
<semantics>
<mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD">
<mstyle displaystyle="true" scriptlevel="0">
<mi>O</mi>
<mo stretchy="false">(</mo>
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<mo stretchy="false">|</mo>
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<mi>R</mi>
<mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD">
<mo stretchy="false">|</mo>
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<mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD">
<mo stretchy="false">|</mo>
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<mi>S</mi>
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<mo stretchy="false">|</mo>
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<mo stretchy="false">)</mo>
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<annotation encoding="application/x-tex">{\displaystyle O(|R||S|)}</annotation>
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</math></span><img src="./f5f8788081430c1376689c4223a8f9bb5623c814.svg" class="mwe-math-fallback-image-inline mw-invert skin-invert" aria-hidden="true" style="vertical-align: -0.838ex; width:9.433ex; height:2.843ex;" alt="{\displaystyle O(|R||S|)}" loading="lazy"></span> I/Os, where <span class="mwe-math-element mwe-math-element-inline"><span class="mwe-math-mathml-inline mwe-math-mathml-a11y" style="display: none;"><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="{\displaystyle |R|}">
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<mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD">
<mstyle displaystyle="true" scriptlevel="0">
<mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD">
<mo stretchy="false">|</mo>
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<mi>R</mi>
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<mo stretchy="false">|</mo>
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<annotation encoding="application/x-tex">{\displaystyle |R|}</annotation>
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</math></span><img src="./78082e353392f3029c4aac649cea3a2412350e08.svg" class="mwe-math-fallback-image-inline mw-invert skin-invert" aria-hidden="true" style="vertical-align: -0.838ex; width:3.058ex; height:2.843ex;" alt="{\displaystyle |R|}" loading="lazy"></span> and <span class="mwe-math-element mwe-math-element-inline"><span class="mwe-math-mathml-inline mwe-math-mathml-a11y" style="display: none;"><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="{\displaystyle |S|}">
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<mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD">
<mstyle displaystyle="true" scriptlevel="0">
<mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD">
<mo stretchy="false">|</mo>
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<mi>S</mi>
<mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD">
<mo stretchy="false">|</mo>
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<annotation encoding="application/x-tex">{\displaystyle |S|}</annotation>
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</math></span><img src="./28d901e98a035ff4c0e37fe6dd8e750ece6c1f0b.svg" class="mwe-math-fallback-image-inline mw-invert skin-invert" aria-hidden="true" style="vertical-align: -0.838ex; width:2.793ex; height:2.843ex;" alt="{\displaystyle |S|}" loading="lazy"></span> is the number of tuples contained in <span class="mwe-math-element mwe-math-element-inline"><span class="mwe-math-mathml-inline mwe-math-mathml-a11y" style="display: none;"><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="{\displaystyle R}">
<semantics>
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<annotation encoding="application/x-tex">{\displaystyle R}</annotation>
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</math></span><img src="./4b0bfb3769bf24d80e15374dc37b0441e2616e33.svg" class="mwe-math-fallback-image-inline mw-invert skin-invert" aria-hidden="true" style="vertical-align: -0.338ex; width:1.764ex; height:2.176ex;" alt="{\displaystyle R}" loading="lazy"></span> and <span class="mwe-math-element mwe-math-element-inline"><span class="mwe-math-mathml-inline mwe-math-mathml-a11y" style="display: none;"><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="{\displaystyle S}">
<semantics>
<mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD">
<mstyle displaystyle="true" scriptlevel="0">
<mi>S</mi>
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<annotation encoding="application/x-tex">{\displaystyle S}</annotation>
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</math></span><img src="./4611d85173cd3b508e67077d4a1252c9c05abca2.svg" class="mwe-math-fallback-image-inline mw-invert skin-invert" aria-hidden="true" style="vertical-align: -0.338ex; width:1.499ex; height:2.176ex;" alt="{\displaystyle S}" loading="lazy"></span> respectively and can easily be generalized to join any number of relations ...
</p><p>The <a href="Block_nested_loop" title="Block nested loop">block nested loop</a> join algorithm<sup id="cite_ref-2" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-2"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>2<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> is a generalization of the simple nested loops algorithm that takes advantage of additional <a href="Memory_(computing)" class="mw-redirect" title="Memory (computing)">memory</a> to reduce the number of times that the <span class="mwe-math-element mwe-math-element-inline"><span class="mwe-math-mathml-inline mwe-math-mathml-a11y" style="display: none;"><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="{\displaystyle S}">
<semantics>
<mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD">
<mstyle displaystyle="true" scriptlevel="0">
<mi>S</mi>
</mstyle>
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<annotation encoding="application/x-tex">{\displaystyle S}</annotation>
</semantics>
</math></span><img src="./4611d85173cd3b508e67077d4a1252c9c05abca2.svg" class="mwe-math-fallback-image-inline mw-invert skin-invert" aria-hidden="true" style="vertical-align: -0.338ex; width:1.499ex; height:2.176ex;" alt="{\displaystyle S}" loading="lazy"></span> relation is scanned. It loads large chunks of relation R into main memory. For each chunk, it scans S and evaluates the join condition on all tuple pairs, currently in memory. This reduces the number of times S is scanned to once per chunk.
</p>
<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Index_join_variation">Index join variation</h2></div>
<p>If the inner relation has an index on the attributes used in the join, then the naive nest loop join can be replaced with an index join.
</p>
<pre><b>algorithm</b> index_join <b>is</b>
<b>for each</b> tuple <i>r</i> in <i>R</i> <b>do</b>
<b>for each</b> tuple <i>s</i> in <i>S</i> in the index lookup <b>do</b>
<b>yield</b> tuple <<i>r</i>,<i>s</i>>
</pre>
<p>The time complexity for this variation improves from <span class="mwe-math-element mwe-math-element-inline"><span class="mwe-math-mathml-inline mwe-math-mathml-a11y" style="display: none;"><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="{\displaystyle O(|R||S|){\text{ to }}O(|R|\log |S|)}">
<semantics>
<mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD">
<mstyle displaystyle="true" scriptlevel="0">
<mi>O</mi>
<mo stretchy="false">(</mo>
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<mo stretchy="false">|</mo>
</mrow>
<mi>R</mi>
<mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD">
<mo stretchy="false">|</mo>
</mrow>
<mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD">
<mo stretchy="false">|</mo>
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<mi>S</mi>
<mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD">
<mo stretchy="false">|</mo>
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<mtext> to </mtext>
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<mi>O</mi>
<mo stretchy="false">(</mo>
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<mi>R</mi>
<mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD">
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<mi>log</mi>
<mo><!-- --></mo>
<mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD">
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<mi>S</mi>
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<annotation encoding="application/x-tex">{\displaystyle O(|R||S|){\text{ to }}O(|R|\log |S|)}</annotation>
</semantics>
</math></span><img src="./f5c61d43ef9a454b6965b3ae82f24cecc0c6e15c.svg" class="mwe-math-fallback-image-inline mw-invert skin-invert" aria-hidden="true" style="vertical-align: -0.838ex; width:25.841ex; height:2.843ex;" alt="{\displaystyle O(|R||S|){\text{ to }}O(|R|\log |S|)}" loading="lazy"></span>
</p>
<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="See_also">See also</h2></div>
<ul><li><a href="Hash_join" title="Hash join">Hash join</a></li>
<li><a href="Sort-merge_join" title="Sort-merge join">Sort-merge join</a></li></ul>
<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="References">References</h2></div>
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</style><cite class="citation web cs1"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms191318(v=sql.105).aspx">"Understanding Nested Loops Joins"</a>. 4 October 2012.</cite></span>
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<li id="cite_note-2"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-2">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><cite class="citation web cs1"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210730081820/http://databaselecture.com/slides/9_Operator_Implementations.pdf">"Query Processing Overview"</a> <span class="cs1-format">(PDF)</span>. Archived from <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.databaselecture.com/slides/9_Operator_Implementations.pdf">the original</a> <span class="cs1-format">(PDF)</span> on 2021-07-30.</cite></span>
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