This is postgres 9.1.9. I'm getting a very weird case in which a simple range query over a PK picks the wrong... the very very wrong index. The interesting thing, is that I've got no idea why PG is so grossly mis-estimating the number of rows scanned by the wrong plan. I've got this table that's a bunch of counters grouped by a bunch of other columns, and a date. The PK is a simple serial type, and the unique index you'll see is over (created, expr1, expr2, ... expr2) where created is the date, and exprN are expressions involving the grouping columns. So, I've got this query with this very wrong plan: explain SELECT min(created) < ((date_trunc('day',now()) - '90 days'::interval)) FROM "aggregated_tracks_daily_full" WHERE id BETWEEN 34979048 AND 35179048 ; QUERY PLAN ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Result (cost=795.24..795.26 rows=1 width=0) InitPlan 1 (returns $0) -> Limit (cost=0.00..795.24 rows=1 width=8) -> Index Scan using ix_aggregated_tracks_daily_full_unq on aggregated_tracks_daily_full (cost=0.00..57875465.87 rows=72777 width=8) Index Cond: (created IS NOT NULL) Filter: ((id >= 34979048) AND (id <= 35179048)) (6 rows) That plan will scan the entire table, because there is NO row with created null. I've got no idea why PG is choosing to scan over the unique index, given that 1) there's 0 rows outside the index condition, so it'll scan the entire table, and 2) i've analyzed and vacuum analyzed repeatedly, no chage, and 3) there's the PK index that works flawless. The table is very big. So scanning it entriely in random fashion isn't smart. I can force the right plan like this: mat=# explain SELECT min(created) < ((date_trunc('day',now()) - '90 days'::interval)) FROM (select id,created FROM "aggregated_tracks_daily_full" WHERE id BETWEEN 34979048 AND 35179048 ORDER BY id) t; QUERY PLAN ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Aggregate (cost=89416.49..89416.51 rows=1 width=8) -> Index Scan using aggregated_tracks_daily_full_pkey on aggregated_tracks_daily_full (cost=0.00..88506.78 rows=72777 width=16) Index Cond: ((id >= 34979048) AND (id <= 35179048)) (3 rows) But i'm wondering why I have to. There's something hinky there. PS: The point of the query is to know whether there's something to be "archived" (ie, too old) in that id range. -- Sent via pgsql-performance mailing list (pgsql-performance@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-performance