Re: [BUG?] estimate_hash_bucket_stats uses wrong ndistinct for avgfreq

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

From: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
To: Tender Wang <tndrwang@gmail.com>
Cc: Joel Jacobson <joel@compiler.org>, pgsql-hackers <pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org>
Date: 2026-03-01T03:53:33Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers
Tender Wang <tndrwang@gmail.com> writes:
> In my previous email, I worried rel->tuples may be zero for an empty relation.
> But here it's safe, because an empty relation has no tuples in pg_statistic.

Not sure about that --- it seems possible that after a mass delete,
VACUUM could update pg_class.reltuples to zero without touching
pg_statistic.  And I also don't remember whether the planner clamps
rel->tuples to be at least 1.  But it doesn't matter.  If rel->tuples
is zero, the if-test will prevent us from dividing by zero, and then
we'll leave *mcv_freq as zero meaning "unknown", which seems fine.
It's the same thing that would have happened before bd3e3e9e5.

			regards, tom lane



Commits

  1. Fix estimate_hash_bucket_stats's correction for skewed data.

  2. Correctly calculate "MCV frequency" for a unique column.