Re: estimating # of distinct values

Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@commandprompt.com> writes:
> I was thinking that we could have two different ANALYZE modes, one
> "full" and one "incremental"; autovacuum could be modified to use one or
> the other depending on how many changes there are (of course, the user
> could request one or the other, too; not sure what should be the default
> behavior).

How is an incremental ANALYZE going to work at all?  It has no way to
find out the recent changes in the table, for *either* inserts or
deletes.  Unless you want to seqscan the whole table looking for tuples
with xmin later than something-or-other ... which more or less defeats
the purpose.
        regards, tom lane