ANALYZE
ANALYZE — collect statistics about a database
Synopsis
ANALYZE [ (option
[, ...] ) ] [table_and_columns
[, ...] ]whereoption
can be one of: VERBOSE [boolean
] SKIP_LOCKED [boolean
] BUFFER_USAGE_LIMITsize
andtable_and_columns
is:table_name
[ (column_name
[, ...] ) ]
Description
ANALYZE
collects statistics about the contents of tables in the database, and stores the results in thepg_statistic
system catalog. Subsequently, the query planner uses these statistics to help determine the most efficient execution plans for queries.
Without atable_and_columns
list,ANALYZE
processes every table and materialized view in the current database that the current user has permission to analyze. With a list,ANALYZE
processes only those table(s). It is further possible to give a list of column names for a table, in which case only the statistics for those columns are collected.
Parameters
VERBOSE
Enables display of progress messages.
SKIP_LOCKED
Specifies that
ANALYZE
should not wait for any conflicting locks to be released when beginning work on a relation: if a relation cannot be locked immediately without waiting, the relation is skipped. Note that even with this option,ANALYZE
may still block when opening the relation's indexes or when acquiring sample rows from partitions, table inheritance children, and some types of foreign tables. Also, whileANALYZE
ordinarily processes all partitions of specified partitioned tables, this option will causeANALYZE
to skip all partitions if there is a conflicting lock on the partitioned table.BUFFER_USAGE_LIMIT
Specifies theBuffer Access Strategy ring buffer size for
ANALYZE
. This size is used to calculate the number of shared buffers which will be reused as part of this strategy.0
disables use of aBuffer Access Strategy
. When this option is not specified,ANALYZE
uses the value fromvacuum_buffer_usage_limit. Higher settings can allowANALYZE
to run more quickly, but having too large a setting may cause too many other useful pages to be evicted from shared buffers. The minimum value is128 kB
and the maximum value is16 GB
.boolean
Specifies whether the selected option should be turned on or off. You can write
TRUE
,ON
, or1
to enable the option, andFALSE
,OFF
, or0
to disable it. Theboolean
value can also be omitted, in which caseTRUE
is assumed.size
Specifies an amount of memory in kilobytes. Sizes may also be specified as a string containing the numerical size followed by any one of the following memory units:
B
(bytes),kB
(kilobytes),MB
(megabytes),GB
(gigabytes), orTB
(terabytes).table_name
The name (possibly schema-qualified) of a specific table to analyze. If omitted, all regular tables, partitioned tables, and materialized views in the current database are analyzed (but not foreign tables). If the specified table is a partitioned table, both the inheritance statistics of the partitioned table as a whole and statistics of the individual partitions are updated.
column_name
The name of a specific column to analyze. Defaults to all columns.
Outputs
WhenVERBOSE
is specified,ANALYZE
emits progress messages to indicate which table is currently being processed. Various statistics about the tables are printed as well.
Notes
To analyze a table, one must ordinarily have theMAINTAIN
privilege on the table. However, database owners are allowed to analyze all tables in their databases, except shared catalogs.ANALYZE
will skip over any tables that the calling user does not have permission to analyze.
Foreign tables are analyzed only when explicitly selected. Not all foreign data wrappers supportANALYZE
. If the table's wrapper does not supportANALYZE
, the command prints a warning and does nothing.
In the defaultPostgreSQL configuration, the autovacuum daemon (seeSection 24.1.6) takes care of automatic analyzing of tables when they are first loaded with data, and as they change throughout regular operation. When autovacuum is disabled, it is a good idea to runANALYZE
periodically, or just after making major changes in the contents of a table. Accurate statistics will help the planner to choose the most appropriate query plan, and thereby improve the speed of query processing. A common strategy for read-mostly databases is to runVACUUM
andANALYZE
once a day during a low-usage time of day. (This will not be sufficient if there is heavy update activity.)
WhileANALYZE
is running, thesearch_path is temporarily changed topg_catalog, pg_temp
.
ANALYZE
requires only a read lock on the target table, so it can run in parallel with other non-DDL activity on the table.
The statistics collected byANALYZE
usually include a list of some of the most common values in each column and a histogram showing the approximate data distribution in each column. One or both of these can be omitted ifANALYZE
deems them uninteresting (for example, in a unique-key column, there are no common values) or if the column data type does not support the appropriate operators. There is more information about the statistics inChapter 24.
For large tables,ANALYZE
takes a random sample of the table contents, rather than examining every row. This allows even very large tables to be analyzed in a small amount of time. Note, however, that the statistics are only approximate, and will change slightly each timeANALYZE
is run, even if the actual table contents did not change. This might result in small changes in the planner's estimated costs shown byEXPLAIN
. In rare situations, this non-determinism will cause the planner's choices of query plans to change afterANALYZE
is run. To avoid this, raise the amount of statistics collected byANALYZE
, as described below.
The extent of analysis can be controlled by adjusting thedefault_statistics_target configuration variable, or on a column-by-column basis by setting the per-column statistics target withALTER TABLE ... ALTER COLUMN ... SET STATISTICS
. The target value sets the maximum number of entries in the most-common-value list and the maximum number of bins in the histogram. The default target value is 100, but this can be adjusted up or down to trade off accuracy of planner estimates against the time taken forANALYZE
and the amount of space occupied inpg_statistic
. In particular, setting the statistics target to zero disables collection of statistics for that column. It might be useful to do that for columns that are never used as part of theWHERE
,GROUP BY
, orORDER BY
clauses of queries, since the planner will have no use for statistics on such columns.
The largest statistics target among the columns being analyzed determines the number of table rows sampled to prepare the statistics. Increasing the target causes a proportional increase in the time and space needed to doANALYZE
.
One of the values estimated byANALYZE
is the number of distinct values that appear in each column. Because only a subset of the rows are examined, this estimate can sometimes be quite inaccurate, even with the largest possible statistics target. If this inaccuracy leads to bad query plans, a more accurate value can be determined manually and then installed withALTER TABLE ... ALTER COLUMN ... SET (n_distinct = ...)
.
If the table being analyzed has inheritance children,ANALYZE
gathers two sets of statistics: one on the rows of the parent table only, and a second including rows of both the parent table and all of its children. This second set of statistics is needed when planning queries that process the inheritance tree as a whole. The child tables themselves are not individually analyzed in this case. The autovacuum daemon, however, will only consider inserts or updates on the parent table itself when deciding whether to trigger an automatic analyze for that table. If that table is rarely inserted into or updated, the inheritance statistics will not be up to date unless you runANALYZE
manually.
For partitioned tables,ANALYZE
gathers statistics by sampling rows from all partitions; in addition, it will recurse into each partition and update its statistics. Each leaf partition is analyzed only once, even with multi-level partitioning. No statistics are collected for only the parent table (without data from its partitions), because with partitioning it's guaranteed to be empty.
The autovacuum daemon does not process partitioned tables, nor does it process inheritance parents if only the children are ever modified. It is usually necessary to periodically run a manualANALYZE
to keep the statistics of the table hierarchy up to date.
If any child tables or partitions are foreign tables whose foreign data wrappers do not supportANALYZE
, those tables are ignored while gathering inheritance statistics.
If the table being analyzed is completely empty,ANALYZE
will not record new statistics for that table. Any existing statistics will be retained.
Each backend runningANALYZE
will report its progress in thepg_stat_progress_analyze
view. SeeSection 27.4.1 for details.
Compatibility
There is noANALYZE
statement in the SQL standard.
The following syntax was used beforePostgreSQL version 11 and is still supported:
ANALYZE [ VERBOSE ] [table_and_columns
[, ...] ]