Greg Stark <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > If the planner had the expected value as well as the variance of the cost > distribution then it might realize that in this case for instance that the > penalty for guessing wrong with an index scan is only going to be a small > slowdown factor, perhaps 2-4x slower. Whereas the penalty for guessing wrong > with a sequential scan could be a factor in the thousands or more.
Au contraire --- a full-table index scan can be vastly slower than a full-table seqscan. I think it's wishful thinking to assume that picking an indexscan is the right thing when we don't know any better. regards, tom lane ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 9: the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not match