Re: Syntax supplements for SET options

Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> writes:
> I don't think we can change this because "ALTER COLUMN SET STATISTICS"
> is not new in 8.5.  We added (and then removed) "ALTER COLUMN SET
> STATISTICS DISTINCT", but that's not the same thing.

> What we COULD do is add a column option called statistics_target and
> then make ALTER COLUMN SET STATISTICS set that option under the hood,
> removing attstattarget.  We could then document that ALTER COLUMN SET
> STATISTICS is deprecated and may be removed in a future release, but
> we won't actually be able to remove it for a long time.

Approximately forever, in fact, because that type of command is emitted
by pg_dump.  Removing it would break old dumps, and we don't do that.

> As with tablespace options, these are more likely to be things that
> you set on an existing table once you discover that something isn't
> working quite right than they are to be things that you want to do
> when initially creating the table.  There's also the issue of exactly
> what the syntax should be.  But I'm not opposed to it.

All of this sounds like too-late-for-9.0 material to me.
        regards, tom lane