pgsql: Doc: clarify n_distinct_inherited setting

From: David Rowley <drowley(at)postgresql(dot)org>
To: pgsql-committers(at)lists(dot)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: pgsql: Doc: clarify n_distinct_inherited setting
Date: 2025-10-13 20:27:53
Message-ID: E1v8P97-001XdQ-1P@gemulon.postgresql.org
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Doc: clarify n_distinct_inherited setting

There was some confusion around how to adjust the n_distinct estimates
for partitioned tables. Here we try and clarify that
n_distinct_inherited needs to be adjusted rather than n_distinct.

Also fix some slightly misleading text which was talking about table
size rather than table rows, fix a grammatical error, and adjust some
text which indicated that ANALYZE was performing calculations based on
the n_distinct settings. Really it's the query planner that does this
and ANALYZE only stores the overridden n_distinct estimate value in
pg_statistic.

Author: David Rowley <dgrowleyml(at)gmail(dot)com>
Reviewed-by: David G. Johnston <david(dot)g(dot)johnston(at)gmail(dot)com>
Reviewed-by: Chao Li <li(dot)evan(dot)chao(at)gmail(dot)com>
Backpatch-through: 13
Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/CAApHDvrL7a-ZytM1SP8Uk9nEw9bR2CPzVb+uP+bcNj=_q-ZmVw@mail.gmail.com

Branch
------
REL_13_STABLE

Details
-------
https://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/c3b9e565137b187cd9b271fff366075020df6b1d

Modified Files
--------------
doc/src/sgml/ref/alter_table.sgml | 34 ++++++++++++++++------------------
1 file changed, 16 insertions(+), 18 deletions(-)

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