Title: Query Select … execution time
Last modified: November 30, 2022

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# Query Select … execution time

 *  [guardiano78](https://wordpress.org/support/users/guardiano78/)
 * (@guardiano78)
 * [3 years, 6 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/query-select-execution-time/)
 * Hello,
    more than anything it is a curiosity. I created a function to retrieve
   a user’s id and email, compared only the woocommerce meta_value field which is
   called “billing_company”.
 * Initially I used the method with arguments:
 *     ```
       $args['meta_query']['relation'] = 'AND';
               $args['orderby'] = 'length(meta_value)';
               $args['order'] = 'ASC';
               $args['limit'] = '1';
               foreach($nominativo as $tag) {
                   if (trim($tag) != '')
                   {
                       $args['meta_query'][] = array( 'key' => 'billing_company', 'value' => trim($tag), 'compare' => 'LIKE' );    
                   }
               }
       $user = get_users($args);
       ```
   
 * It works, but it’s not very accurate because it doesn’t seem to fully accept 
   the length(meta_value) function in order by.
    So I was forced to use $wpdb doing
   a classic select with the same features. Now it works perfectly, except for cases
   of homonymy, but there is nothing we can do about it.
 * Let’s get to the point. What surprised me is the difference in script execution
   speed between the first and second method.
    bearing in mind that the script processes
   several thousand lines, the first method takes about 7 and a half minutes, while
   the second method takes about 1 and a half minutes.
 * A huge difference to get the same result.
 * Could anyone tell me why?
    Thank you.
 * Regards,
    Renato

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

 *  Thread Starter [guardiano78](https://wordpress.org/support/users/guardiano78/)
 * (@guardiano78)
 * [3 years, 6 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/query-select-execution-time/#post-16247008)
 * Maybe I understood. Through $args I retrieve much more information than the $
   wpdb query which only retrieves my id.
    Could this be the reason?
 *  Moderator [bcworkz](https://wordpress.org/support/users/bcworkz/)
 * (@bcworkz)
 * [3 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/query-select-execution-time/#post-16249256)
 * WP_User_Query only accepts certain orderby args. Even if you pass valid SQL, 
   it may not be acceptable to the arg parser. There are some filters you could 
   use to inject an arbitrary ORDER BY clause directly into the query’s SQL. There’s
   also a “fields” arg you can use to get the query to only return ID fields. If
   you did all of that, the time taken may be more similar since the resulting SQL
   will be much closer to yours in functionality.
 * I think you’re right, the volume of data returned is likely the reason for the
   time discrepancy. You must have a huge user or user meta table for queries to
   take that long! The WP meta data schema isn’t very efficient to start with. If
   someone really needed more performative meta queries, they’d create a custom 
   table where each column is a distinct meta value that would normally be the key
   name in the WP usermeta table.
 * It’s clearly impractical to manage all meta data in this manner, but if the data
   is frequently used as criteria in large queries it’s better off in its own field.

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

The topic ‘Query Select … execution time’ is closed to new replies.

## Tags

 * [args](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/args/)
 * [query](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/query/)
 * [select](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/select/)
 * [time](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/time/)

 * In: [Developing with WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/wp-advanced/)
 * 2 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [bcworkz](https://wordpress.org/support/users/bcworkz/)
 * Last activity: [3 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/query-select-execution-time/#post-16249256)
 * Status: not resolved

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