From 4767bc8ff2edc1258cf4d8a83155d4cedd724231 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Tom Lane
Date: Thu, 16 Feb 2012 17:33:28 -0500
Subject: Improve statistics estimation to make some use of DISTINCT in
 sub-queries.

Formerly, we just punted when trying to estimate stats for variables coming
out of sub-queries using DISTINCT, on the grounds that whatever stats we
might have for underlying table columns would be inapplicable.  But if the
sub-query has only one DISTINCT column, we can consider its output variable
as being unique, which is useful information all by itself.  The scope of
this improvement is pretty narrow, but it costs nearly nothing, so we might
as well do it.  Per discussion with Andres Freund.

This patch differs from the draft I submitted yesterday in updating various
comments about vardata.isunique (to reflect its extended meaning) and in
tweaking the interaction with security_barrier views.  There does not seem
to be a reason why we can't use this sort of knowledge even when the
sub-query is such a view.
---
 src/include/utils/selfuncs.h | 2 +-
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

(limited to 'src/include/utils/selfuncs.h')

diff --git a/src/include/utils/selfuncs.h b/src/include/utils/selfuncs.h
index 78eda1b503f..bffc2d80ef0 100644
--- a/src/include/utils/selfuncs.h
+++ b/src/include/utils/selfuncs.h
@@ -74,7 +74,7 @@ typedef struct VariableStatData
 	Oid			vartype;		/* exposed type of expression */
 	Oid			atttype;		/* type to pass to get_attstatsslot */
 	int32		atttypmod;		/* typmod to pass to get_attstatsslot */
-	bool		isunique;		/* true if matched to a unique index */
+	bool		isunique;		/* matches unique index or DISTINCT clause */
 } VariableStatData;
 
 #define ReleaseVariableStats(vardata)  \
-- 
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