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What are the factors that would affect the RAM usage by a query?

How do I assess the rough RAM usage of a query given the complete SQL?

This is regarding the MySQL RDBMS.

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MySQL uses RAM in many ways...

  • For caching data and indexes. In some sense, it does not matter how much RAM, since it is cache. This may be the biggest use, but it is a "shared" use.

  • A complex SELECT may need a temporary table (eg, for GROUP BY and/or ORDER BY and/or subquery). This may be done in RAM, or it may not even attempt to do it in RAM, but instead do it on disk. There is one setting that puts a limit on the size of each in-memory temp table.

  • The parsing of the statement takes a little bit of RAM.

  • The binlog is buffered through RAM.

  • "Group commit" is buffered in RAM.

  • Galera does its "will this commit with a deadlock" logic in RAM.

  • InnoDB uses bits to keep track of what is locked.

Shall I go on? Your question is not easy to answer. Furthermore, I would argue that it is mostly irrelevant. Would you care to explain why you asked?

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    Rick, Thank you for your answer. One of our instances started using RAM all at sudden after running successfully for 100 days. During that time, we have observed a complex query on the query prompt. I just wanted to know whether it can b a reason or not. Your reply is nice enough for me. It would be my strong reference going forward while dealing with this like issues.
    – Uday
    Jul 11, 2015 at 14:50

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