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Minimizing not-equal-to joins

Not-equal-to joins should be avoided as they result in a full table scan, which can lead to poor performance, especially in large tables.

Example

  • Using Flag = 'Yes' is more efficient than Flag = 'No', as the latter performs a full table scan, potentially slowing down performance depending on the number of records with Flag = 'No'.

Considerations

  • This does not mean replacing Not Equal To statements with multiple OR conditions, which could lead to equally inefficient logic.

  • In such cases, refer to the best practices outlined in the section on "Minimizing Any Joins" for an optimal solution.