What is the correct/fastest way to negate @> in Postgres? I have a text[] column in Postgres 9.5
I am planning on running a lot of queries with @&gt; against it
I have a GIN index on this column


Normally you need to use the correct Postgres operator so that an index is consulted for your query. There is no operator that is the "opposite" of  @&gt; as far as I know.

I ran EXPLAIN ANALYZE on a query for this table and it takes 8 times as long to run WHERE NOT column @&gt; array['thing'] as it does to run  WHERE column @&gt; array['thing']. The planner reports that it does a filter for WHERE NOT instead of a bitmap index scan on my index.

What is the correct way to negate @&gt; so that my index is consulted?

I'm willing to create new indexes for this column, including functional indexes if that's the answer.

Here are depesz links:

https://explain.depesz.com/s/uXOT
https://explain.depesz.com/s/nc7Q
https://explain.depesz.com/s/wC9m
https://explain.depesz.com/s/Eat
I don't think there is any highly effective way to index generic versions of that expression.  If you find a way to do so, I think you will be famous (well, famous within database circles, anyway).

If it is always exactly NOT column @&gt; array['thing'] where 'thing' does not change, you could build special-purpose indexes, like

create index on foo (("column" @&gt; array['thing']));


(or a partial index version of that)

Once 9.6 is released, you will be able to do the seq scan in parallel, and so get a boost that way.