does MySQL short-circuit?

[GeX]

Got some fairly hefty tables in a DB at work and from time to time (rarely) I need to look through them when something goes a bit wonky.

I have been using;

SELECT * FROM table WHERE cData LIKE '%search_term%' ORDER BY dtCreated DESC;

This is taking an age, so I altered it slightly;

SELECT * FROM table WHERE dtCreated > '2010-12-01 00:00:00' AND cData LIKE '%search_term%' ORDER BY dtCreated DESC;

My thinking would be that it'd short-circuit and speed up a lot. It did not.

Is there a way to get MySQL to short-circuit? Is there a better way of doing what I'm trying to do? I cannot alter the DB structure at this time.

 

[GeX]

hmmm, nothing really in it. 1288 seconds vs 1213 seconds. Both far too slow. Going to try dropping the dtCreated

 

[GeX]

thanks guys. I'm going to look into adding an index to dtCreated - not sure when that'll be able to happen though!