Re: Improving N-Distinct estimation by ANALYZE

On Wed, Jan 04, 2006 at 07:10:29PM +0000, Simon Riggs wrote:
> 3. We should also apply multi-column heuristics to the estimation of D,
> once we have estimated all columns. For column groups (pairs, triples
> etc) that form part of a PK, we know that it must be true that D1 *
> D2 ... Dk >= N. In many cases we will be very confident of our estimate
> of D when we decide = d. i.e. When we have two columns, we can use this
> to infer that D1 = N/d when D2 = d. So we can do this in any case where
> we have confident estimates of all but one column; the required
> information is available at that time.
> e.g. if line_item primary key ( l_orderkey, l_linenumber ) and we know
> that there are at most 10 l_linenumber values in the table, then there
> should be N/10 values for l_orderkey, so set it to that if it is lower
> (only).

Sorry if I'm pointing out the obwious, but I would do this for any 
unique index, not just a PK. (It should still hold for any unique index,
right?)

Also, was an approach of sampling random rows within random blocks
considered? Something like:

until row sample size reached   read random block   sample x% of rows in that block randomly
done
-- 
Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant      jnasby@pervasive.com
Pervasive Software      http://pervasive.com    work: 512-231-6117
vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf       cell: 512-569-9461