Parameter Name Size And Performance

I saw an odd statement the other day, “The size of the name of the parameter does not affect performance.” My first thought was, “Well, duh!” But then, I had one of those, “Ah, but are you sure” thoughts. And you know what, I wasn’t sure.

If size of the parameter name did affect performance, I figured, the one sure place where that would be evident is in the size of the execution plan. Right? I mean, if there was an impact on memory, and hence on performance, that’s probably where you’d see evidence of it. I wrote two queries:

 DECLARE @ThisIsAVeryVeryLongParameterNameThatIsTrulyRidiculousButItIllustratesThePointThatParameterLengthDoesNotAffectPerformance int
SET @ThisIsAVeryVeryLongParameterNameThatIsTrulyRidiculousButItIllustratesThePointThatParameterLengthDoesNotAffectPerformance = 572
SELECT soh.SalesOrderID
,sod.SalesOrderDetailID
FROM Sales.SalesOrderHeader AS soh
JOIN Sales.SalesOrderDetail AS sod
ON soh.SalesOrderID = sod.SalesOrderID
WHERE soh.SalesOrderID = @ThisIsAVeryVeryLongParameterNameThatIsTrulyRidiculousButItIllustratesThePointThatParameterLengthDoesNotAffectPerformance

DECLARE @v int
SET @v = 572
SELECT soh.SalesOrderID
,sod.SalesOrderDetailID
FROM Sales.SalesOrderHeader AS soh
JOIN Sales.SalesOrderDetail AS sod
ON soh.SalesOrderID = sod.SalesOrderID
WHERE soh.SalesOrderID = @v 

If you run this against AdventureWorks2008R2 you’ll get two distinct, but identical, execution plans:

You can see that they look identical, but how do I know they’re distinct? If you run this query:

 SELECT deqs.creation_time,
deqs.query_hash,
deqs.query_plan_hash
FROM sys.dm_exec_query_stats AS deqs
CROSS APPLY sys.dm_exec_query_plan(deqs.plan_handle) AS deqp
CROSS APPLY sys.dm_exec_sql_text(deqs.sql_handle) AS dest
WHERE dest.text LIKE '%SELECT soh.SalesOrderID%' 

You’ll get this back as a result:

creation_time                               query_hash                                 query_plan_hash
2010-09-23 18:18:09.347      0x8D0FB9D524B8DD4D       0x13707445560737BA
2010-09-23 18:18:16.223       0x8D0FB9D524B8DD4D       0x13707445560737BA

Two distinct queries, but with identical hash values, so the plans generated are nearly the same, but clearly different, due to the fact that they were built with different parameters, including the monster name. So, how to see if there is a difference in the plan generated that could affect performance? How about the execution plan properties. First, the property sheet for the SELECT operator for the query with the long parameter name:

Of particular note is the Cache Plan Size. Let’s compare it to the same property sheet for the small parameter name:

If you compare the two, you’ll see that they’re the same. In fact, if you look at almost all the values, you’ll see that the Compile CPU, Compile Memory, and Compile Time are all identical. Based on all this information, I have to conclude that no, the size of the name of the parameter doesn’t affect performance, positively or negatively. But why?

I’m actually not 100% sure, but based on some things I know, here’s what I think. The Algebrizer within the Query Optimizer breaks down all the objects referred to within a query plan. It assigns them all values and identifiers for that plan, part of getting the information together to feed the plan into the mathematical part of the Optimizer. I’ll bet it just assigns values to parameters that are the same type of value, if not the same exact value, and that value is the same size from one execution plan to the next.

This means that you don’t save memory by assigning parameters @a, @b, @c when in fact you mean @ReferenceCount, @MaxRetries, @BeginDate. Do I think you should put in parameters of the silly length I put in before? No, of course, not, because it makes the TSQL code less clear. But, so does putting in equally silly, short, parameter names.

Don’t make your TSQL code hard to read. It doesn’t help performance.