Re: Improving N-Distinct estimation by ANALYZE

Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>

From: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
To: Simon Riggs <simon@2ndquadrant.com>
Cc: pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org
Date: 2006-01-04T19:49:16Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers
Simon Riggs <simon@2ndquadrant.com> writes:
> [ ... a large amount of analysis based on exactly one test case ... ]

I think you are putting too much emphasis on fixing one case and not
enough on considering what may happen in other cases ...

In general, estimating n-distinct from a sample is just plain a hard
problem, and it's probably foolish to suppose we'll ever be able to
do it robustly.  What we need is to minimize the impact when we get
it wrong.  So I agree with the comment that we need to finish the
unfinished project of making HashAggregate tables expansible, but
I'm dubious about the rest of this.

			regards, tom lane