Q:

How to use Limit in query on my index column without scan all rows?

Here is my table :

In my table 

Clustering_key (Primary key and auto incremental)
ID (Index Column)
Data (Text datatype column)
Position(Index column) maintain the order of Data

My table have 90,000 rows with same ID equal to 5. I want to first 3 rows with ID equal to 5 and my query like this 
Select * from mytable where ID=5 Limit 3;

ID column is index column So I think mysql scan only first 3 rows but mysql scan around 42000 rows.
Here Explain query :

Any possibility to avoid all rows scan.
Please give me some solution 
Thanks in advance 

A:

I simulated the scenario. 

Created the table using 

   CREATE TABLE mytable (
        Clustering_key INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
        ID INT NOT NULL,
        Data text NOT NULL,
        Position INT NOT NULL,
        PRIMARY KEY (Clustering_key),
        KEY(ID),
        KEY(Position)
    )

Inserted data with 

    INSERT INTO mytable (ID,Data,Position) VALUES (5,CONCAT("Data-",5), 7);
    INSERT INTO mytable (ID,Data,Position) VALUES (5,CONCAT("Data-",5), 26);
    INSERT INTO mytable (ID,Data,Position) VALUES (5,CONCAT("Data-",51), 27);
    INSERT INTO mytable (ID,Data,Position) VALUES (5,CONCAT("Data-",56), 28);
    INSERT INTO mytable (ID,Data,Position) VALUES (5,CONCAT("Data-",57), 31);

Explain

    mysql> explain Select * from mytable where ID=5 Limit 3
    +----+-------------+---------+------------+------+---------------+------+---------+-------+------+----------+-------+
    | id | select_type | table   | partitions | type | possible_keys | key  | key_len | ref   | rows | filtered | Extra |
    +----+-------------+---------+------------+------+---------------+------+---------+-------+------+----------+-------+
    |  1 | SIMPLE      | mytable | NULL       | ref  | ID            | ID   | 4       | const |    5 |   100.00 | NULL  |
    +----+-------------+---------+------------+------+---------------+------+---------+-------+------+----------+-------+
    1 row in set, 1 warning (0.00 sec)

Yes, the explain shows rows examined is 5, but not 3.
But seems it is just a misleading info.
The exact number of run-time rows_examined can be verified by enabling slow log for all queries(Setting long_query_time=0) by following steps. 
Note: You MUST set long_query_time=0 only in your own testing database.  And you MUST reset the parameter back to the previous value after the testing.

     - set GLOBAL slow_query_log=1;
     - set global long_query_time=0;
     - set session long_query_time=0;
     mysql> show variables like '%slow%';
    +---------------------------+-------------------------------------------------+
    | Variable_name             | Value                                           |
    +---------------------------+-------------------------------------------------+
    | log_slow_admin_statements | OFF                                             |
    | log_slow_slave_statements | OFF                                             |
    | slow_launch_time          | 2                                               |
    | slow_query_log            | ON                                              |
    | slow_query_log_file       | /usr/local/mysql/data/slow.log                  |
    +---------------------------+-------------------------------------------------+
    5 rows in set (0.10 sec)
    mysql> select @@long_query_time;
    +-------------------+
    | @@long_query_time |
    +-------------------+
    |          0.000000 |
    +-------------------+
    
And then in the terminal, executing the query
<pre>
mysql> Select * from mytable where ID=5 Limit 3;
+----------------+----+---------+----------+
| Clustering_key | ID | Data    | Position |
+----------------+----+---------+----------+
|              5 |  5 | Data-5  |        7 |
|          26293 |  5 | Data-5  |       26 |
|          26294 |  5 | Data-51 |       27 |
+----------------+----+---------+----------+
3 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> Select * from mytable where ID=5 Limit 1;

Checking the slow log by inspecting the slow_query_log_file printed above /usr/local/mysql/data/slow.log
You can find out the info as below.

    # Time: 2019-04-26T01:48:19.890846Z
    # User@Host: root[root] @ localhost []  Id:  5124
    # Query_time: 0.000575  Lock_time: 0.000146 Rows_sent: 3  Rows_examined: 3 
    SET timestamp=1556243299;
    Select * from mytable where ID=5 Limit 3;
    # Time: 2019-04-26T01:48:34.672888Z
    # User@Host: root[root] @ localhost []  Id:  5124
    # Query_time: 0.000182  Lock_time: 0.000074 Rows_sent: 1  Rows_examined: 1 
    SET timestamp=1556243314;
    Select * from mytable where ID=5 Limit 1;

The runtime Rows_exmained value is equal to the value of limit parameter.
The test is done on MySQL 5.7.18.
----------------------------------Another way to verify----------------------------------

    mysql> show status like '%Innodb_rows_read%';
    +------------------+-------+
    | Variable_name    | Value |
    +------------------+-------+
    | Innodb_rows_read | 13    |
    +------------------+-------+
    1 row in set (0.00 sec)

    mysql> Select * from mytable where ID=5 Limit 1;
    +----------------+----+--------+----------+
    | Clustering_key | ID | Data   | Position |
    +----------------+----+--------+----------+
    |              5 |  5 | Data-5 |        7 |
    +----------------+----+--------+----------+
    1 row in set (0.00 sec)

    mysql> show status like '%Innodb_rows_read%';
    +------------------+-------+
    | Variable_name    | Value |
    +------------------+-------+
    | Innodb_rows_read | 14    |
    +------------------+-------+
    1 row in set (0.00 sec)

You can see the Innodb_rows_read just be increased 1 for limit 1.
If you do a full table scan query, you can see the value will be increased by the count of the table.

    mysql> select count(*) from mytable;
    +----------+
    | count(*) |
    +----------+
    |   126296 |
    +----------+
    1 row in set (0.05 sec)

    mysql> show status like '%Innodb_rows_read%';
    +------------------+--------+
    | Variable_name    | Value  |
    +------------------+--------+
    | Innodb_rows_read | 505204 |
    +------------------+--------+
    1 row in set (0.00 sec)

    mysql> Select * from mytable where Data="Data-5";
    +----------------+----+--------+----------+
    | Clustering_key | ID | Data   | Position |
    +----------------+----+--------+----------+
    |              5 |  5 | Data-5 |        7 |
    |          26293 |  5 | Data-5 |       26 |
    |          26301 |  5 | Data-5 |        7 |
    +----------------+----+--------+----------+
    3 rows in set (0.09 sec)

    mysql> show status like '%Innodb_rows_read%';
    +------------------+--------+
    | Variable_name    | Value  |
    +------------------+--------+
    | Innodb_rows_read | 631500 |
    +------------------+--------+
    1 row in set (0.00 sec)

Both ways confirmed the explain for limit seems providing misleading info about rows examined.

