Re: Index scan cost calculation

Glyn Astill <glynastill@yahoo.co.uk> writes:
>> From: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
>> The problem will probably go away by itself as your table grows, but
>> if you don't want to wait, you might want to reflect on which of the index
>> columns might be (partially?) functionally dependent on the other columns,
>> and whether you could redesign the key structure to avoid that.

> Many thanks for the explanation, is such a functional  dependency assumed purely based optimistically on statistics
gatheredby analyze? 

Well, the point is that the selectivities associated with the individual
WHERE clauses are assumed independent, which allows us to just multiply
them together.  If they're not really independent then multiplication
gives a combined selectivity that's too small.  But without cross-column
statistics there's not much we can do to get a better estimate.

            regards, tom lane