Re: Refactoring IndexPath representation of index conditions

Alvaro Herrera <alvherre(at)2ndquadrant(dot)com> writes:
> On 2019-Feb-02, Tom Lane wrote:
>> Another idea that I looked into is to not create RestrictInfos for
>> derived indexqual clauses, with the hope that that would further
>> reduce the added overhead for the commuted-clause case. However
>> that crashed and burned when I found out that the extended-stats
>> machinery punts when given a bare clause rather than a RestrictInfo.
>> It could possibly be fixed to not do that, but it looks like the
>> consequences would be extra lookups that'd probably cost more than
>> we saved by omitting the RestrictInfo. Also, having RestrictInfos
>> means that we can cache selectivity estimates across multiple
>> calls. I'm not entirely sure how much that matters in this
>> context, but it's probably not negligible.

> Is it reasonable to give ext-stats the option to receive either a
> "plain" clause or a RestrictInfo, and if the former have it construct
> the RestrictInfo and return it?

No, I don't think it'd be sane to have ext-stats modify that data
structure after-the-fact. Too much risk of trouble (he says while
eyeing the GEQO machinery warily); plus, if we did it like that,
we'd *definitely* be giving up the ability to cache and share
cost/selectivity numbers between ext-stats and other places.

> It seems a pity to waste effort to
> cater for ext-stats, only to be used in the rare case where any
> ext-stats actually exist ... most of the time, it'd be wasted effort.

I'm not sure it's a good idea to design on the assumption that ext-stats
are rare. I think they'll get more common over time. Right now that
machinery is hardly built out at all, but it's coming.

regards, tom lane