Ron Mayer <rm_pg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes: > Oleg Bartunov wrote: > OB:> it's not about short or long arrays, it's about small or big > OB:> cardinality of the whole set (the number of unique elements) > I'm re-reading the docs and still wasn't obvious to me. A > potential docs patch is attached below. Done, though not in exactly those words. I wonder though if we can be less vague about it --- can we suggest a typical cutover point? Like "use gist__intbig_ops if there are more than about 10,000 distinct array values"? Even a rough order of magnitude for where to worry about this would save a lot of people time. regards, tom lane Index: intarray.sgml =================================================================== RCS file: /cvsroot/pgsql/doc/src/sgml/intarray.sgml,v retrieving revision 1.5 retrieving revision 1.6 diff -c -r1.5 -r1.6 *** intarray.sgml 10 Dec 2007 05:32:51 -0000 1.5 --- intarray.sgml 18 Mar 2009 20:18:18 -0000 1.6 *************** *** 237,245 **** <para> Two GiST index operator classes are provided: <literal>gist__int_ops</> (used by default) is suitable for ! small and medium-size arrays, while <literal>gist__intbig_ops</> uses a larger signature and is more ! suitable for indexing large arrays. </para> <para> --- 237,246 ---- <para> Two GiST index operator classes are provided: <literal>gist__int_ops</> (used by default) is suitable for ! small- to medium-size data sets, while <literal>gist__intbig_ops</> uses a larger signature and is more ! suitable for indexing large data sets (i.e., columns containing ! a large number of distinct array values). </para> <para> - Sent via pgsql-performance mailing list (pgsql-performance@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-performance