Dear PostgreSQL developers, I'm confused about the absence of a very simple optimization in PostgreSQL. Suppose we have a VIEW where some columns are expensive to be calculated: CREATE VIEW a AS SELECT (... expensive calculation ...) as expensive, count(*) as cheap FROM x; where "x" is a sufficiently large table. I would expect the following query to be very fast: SELECT cheap FROM a; However, it takes the same time as "SELECT * FROM a;". In other words: The column "expensive" is calculated although it hasn't been asked for. Of course, there are work-arounds for that, but I wonder why PostgreSQL doesn't perform this small optimization by itself. I checked that behaviour with PostgreSQL 8.3.7 (Debian/Etch) and 8.4.1 (Debian/Lenny). Greets, Volker -- Volker Grabsch ---<<(())>>--- Administrator NotJustHosting GbR -- Sent via pgsql-performance mailing list (pgsql-performance@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-performance