PostgreSQL 9.0 High Performance

Executing other statement types

The same basic execution logic is used to handle all four of the basic SQL query types: SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE. For example, when doing an UPDATE, the identified rows to update are found in a familiar way and then fed to an Update node:

EXPLAIN ANALYZE UPDATE customers SET state=state WHERE customerid=1;
QUERY PLAN
----------
Update  (cost=0.00..0.28 rows=1 width=274) (actual time=63.289..63.289 rows=0 loops=1)
   ->  Index Scan using customers_pkey on customers  (cost=0.00..0.28 rows=1 width=274) (actual time=0.054..0.063 rows=1 loop
s=1)
         Index Cond: (customerid = 1)
 Total runtime: 63.415 ms

UPDATE and DELETE can execute efficiently by keeping track of the tuple ID uniquely identifying each of the rows ...