Is it possible to avoid filesort? Is it possible to avoid 'Using temporary' and 'Using filesort' for the following SELECT query? I can't figure out a way to do it.



I tried adding indexes, for both top_expire and program, but didn't help
With the ORDER BY the query takes over 1 second and withoud it is just 0.003 seconds on localhost 



Query

SELECT ad.*, p.link
    FROM (SELECT ad.*
        FROM mod_ad ad 
        JOIN mod_ad_auta auta ON ad.id = auta.ad_id
        WHERE ad.active != 0 AND ad.usr_active != 0 AND ad.expire &gt; 1371151608  AND ad.cat_id = '1' AND ad.price &lt;= '10000' 
          AND auta.rocnik BETWEEN '1950' AND '2013' 
          AND auta.km BETWEEN '0' AND '500000'
        ORDER BY top_expire DESC, program DESC,  ad.id DESC  LIMIT 0,10) as ad
JOIN pages p ON ad.page_id=p.page_id;


Schema

CREATE TABLE `mod_ad` (
  `id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `user_id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL,
  `page_id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL,
  `cat_id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL,
  `subcat_id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL,
  `program` tinyint(1) unsigned NOT NULL,
  `region_id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL,
  `zone_id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL,
  `city_id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL,
  `sort` enum('firm','priv') NOT NULL,
  `type` enum('predaj','kúpa','výmena','darujem','hľadám','ponúkam','iné') NOT NULL,
  `condition` varchar(24) NOT NULL,
  `name` varchar(128) NOT NULL,
  `desc` text NOT NULL,
  `location` varchar(128) NOT NULL,
  `keywords` varchar(255) NOT NULL,
  `price` decimal(10,2) NOT NULL,
  `price_type` varchar(20) NOT NULL,
  `cperson` varchar(128) NOT NULL,
  `firmname` varchar(128) NOT NULL,
  `zip` varchar(5) NOT NULL,
  `email` varchar(255) NOT NULL,
  `tel` varchar(20) NOT NULL,
  `tel2` varchar(20) NOT NULL,
  `web` varchar(255) NOT NULL,
  `video` varchar(255) NOT NULL,
  `marked_expire` int(11) unsigned NOT NULL,
  `top_expire` int(11) unsigned NOT NULL,
  `ad_hot_expire` int(11) unsigned NOT NULL,
  `ad_border_expire` int(11) unsigned NOT NULL,
  `ad_heading_expire` int(11) unsigned NOT NULL,
  `ad_weblink_expire` int(11) unsigned NOT NULL,
  `active` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL,
  `usr_active` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL,
  `added` timestamp NOT NULL DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP,
  `archive` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL,
  `expire` int(11) unsigned NOT NULL,
  `token` varchar(32) NOT NULL,
  `views` mediumint(9) NOT NULL,
  `ip` varchar(15) NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
  KEY `user_id` (`user_id`),
  KEY `page_id` (`page_id`),
  KEY `cat_id` (`cat_id`),
  KEY `region_id` (`region_id`),
  KEY `zone_id` (`zone_id`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;

CREATE TABLE `mod_ad_auta` (
  `id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `ad_id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL,
  `model` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL,
  `rocnik` smallint(5) unsigned NOT NULL,
  `palivo` varchar(10) NOT NULL,
  `karoseria` varchar(12) NOT NULL,
  `km` mediumint(8) unsigned NOT NULL,
  `prevodovka` varchar(12) NOT NULL,
  `farba` varchar(16) NOT NULL,
  `metaliza` tinyint(1) unsigned NOT NULL,
  `obsah` smallint(5) unsigned NOT NULL,
  `vykon` smallint(5) unsigned NOT NULL,
  `vybava` text NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
  KEY `ad_id` (`ad_id`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;
The docs say


  In some cases, MySQL cannot use indexes to resolve the ORDER BY,
  although it still uses indexes to find the rows that match the WHERE
  clause. These cases include the following:


and then go on to list many circumstances that prevent MySQL from using indexes. Among them are


  
  You use ORDER BY on different keys
  The key used to fetch the rows is not the same as the one used in the ORDER BY
  


and there are probably others.

To avoid a filesort, you have to find a way to get what you want without running into any of those (many) documented conditions.

You can also


  
  Increase the size of the sort_buffer_size variable.
  Increase the size of the read_rnd_buffer_size variable.
  Use less RAM per row by declaring columns only as large as they need to be to hold the values stored in them. 
  Change tmpdir to point to a dedicated file system with large amounts of free space. 
  


(Same link.)

Also see docs for Optimizing LIMIT Queries, which interacts with ORDER BY.