pg_stats
The view pg_stats provides access to
the information stored in the pg_statistic
catalog. This view allows access only to rows of
pg_statistic that correspond to tables the
user has permission to read, and therefore it is safe to allow public
read access to this view.
pg_stats is also designed to present the
information in a more readable format than the underlying catalog
— at the cost that its schema must be extended whenever new slot types
are defined for pg_statistic.
Table 52.88. pg_stats Columns
| Name | Type | References | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
schemaname | name | | Name of schema containing table |
tablename | name | | Name of table |
attname | name | | Name of the column described by this row |
inherited | bool | If true, this row includes inheritance child columns, not just the values in the specified table | |
null_frac | real | Fraction of column entries that are null | |
avg_width | integer | Average width in bytes of column's entries | |
n_distinct | real |
If greater than zero, the estimated number of distinct values in the
column. If less than zero, the negative of the number of distinct
values divided by the number of rows. (The negated form is used when
ANALYZE believes that the number of distinct values is
likely to increase as the table grows; the positive form is used when
the column seems to have a fixed number of possible values.) For
example, -1 indicates a unique column in which the number of distinct
values is the same as the number of rows.
| |
most_common_vals | anyarray | A list of the most common values in the column. (Null if no values seem to be more common than any others.) | |
most_common_freqs | real[] |
A list of the frequencies of the most common values,
i.e., number of occurrences of each divided by total number of rows.
(Null when most_common_vals is.)
| |
histogram_bounds | anyarray |
A list of values that divide the column's values into groups of
approximately equal population. The values in
most_common_vals, if present, are omitted from this
histogram calculation. (This column is null if the column data type
does not have a < operator or if the
most_common_vals list accounts for the entire
population.)
| |
correlation | real |
Statistical correlation between physical row ordering and
logical ordering of the column values. This ranges from -1 to +1.
When the value is near -1 or +1, an index scan on the column will
be estimated to be cheaper than when it is near zero, due to reduction
of random access to the disk. (This column is null if the column data
type does not have a < operator.)
| |
most_common_elems | anyarray | A list of non-null element values most often appearing within values of the column. (Null for scalar types.) | |
most_common_elem_freqs | real[] |
A list of the frequencies of the most common element values, i.e., the
fraction of rows containing at least one instance of the given value.
Two or three additional values follow the per-element frequencies;
these are the minimum and maximum of the preceding per-element
frequencies, and optionally the frequency of null elements.
(Null when most_common_elems is.)
| |
elem_count_histogram | real[] | A histogram of the counts of distinct non-null element values within the values of the column, followed by the average number of distinct non-null elements. (Null for scalar types.) |
The maximum number of entries in the array fields can be controlled on a
column-by-column basis using the ALTER TABLE SET STATISTICS
command, or globally by setting the
default_statistics_target run-time parameter.