SQL SERVER – Index Created on View not Used Often – Observation of the View

I always enjoy writing about concepts on Views. Views are frequently used concepts, and so it’s not surprising that I have seen so many misconceptions about this subject. To clear such misconceptions, I have previously written the article SQL SERVER – The Limitations of the Views – Eleven and more…. This time I show when an index created on view is actually used.

I also wrote a follow up article wherein I demonstrated that without even creating index on the basic table, the query on the View will not use the View. You can read about this demonstration over here: SQL SERVER – Index Created on View not Used Often – Limitation of the View 12. I promised in that post that I would also write an article where I would demonstrate the condition where the Index will be used. I got many responses suggesting that I can do that with using NOEXPAND; I agree. I have already written about this in my original summary article.

Here is a way for you to see how Index created on View can be utilized.

We will do the following steps on this exercise:

• Create a Table
• Create a View
• Create Index On View
• Write SELECT with ORDER BY on View

USE tempdb
GO
IF EXISTS (SELECT * FROM sys.views WHERE OBJECT_ID = OBJECT_ID(N'[dbo].[SampleView]'))
DROP VIEW [dbo].[SampleView] GO
IF EXISTS (SELECT * FROM sys.objects WHERE OBJECT_ID = OBJECT_ID(N'[dbo].[mySampleTable]') AND TYPE IN (N'U'))
DROP TABLE [dbo].[mySampleTable] GO
-- Create SampleTable
CREATE TABLE mySampleTable (ID1 INT, ID2 INT, SomeData VARCHAR(100))
INSERT INTO mySampleTable (ID1,ID2,SomeData)
SELECT TOP 100000 ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY o1.name),
ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY o2.name),
o2.name
FROM sys.all_objects o1
CROSS JOIN sys.all_objects o2
GO
-- Create View
CREATE VIEW SampleView
WITH SCHEMABINDING
AS
SELECT ID1,ID2,SomeData
FROM dbo.mySampleTable
GO
-- Create Index on View
CREATE UNIQUE CLUSTERED INDEX [IX_ViewSample] ON [dbo].[SampleView] (
ID2 ASC
)
GO
-- Select from view
SELECT ID1,ID2,SomeData
FROM SampleView
ORDER BY ID2
GO

When we check the execution plan for this , we find it clearly that the Index created on the View is utilized. ORDER BY clause uses the Index created on the View.

I hope this makes the puzzle simpler on how the Index is used on the View. Again, I strongly recommend reading my earlier series about the limitations of the Views found here: SQL SERVER – The Limitations of the Views – Eleven and more….

Published by Pinal Dave on SQLAuthority. More of my work at pinaldave.com.