Re: Postgresqlism & Vacuum?

At 06:13 AM 4/14/00 -0500, you wrote:
>I'd think some how there could be a way to vacuum without having to lock
>up the entire DB.

>From http://www.postgresql.org/docs/user/sql-vacuum.htm
>
>VACUUM serves two purposes in Postgres as both a means to reclaim
>storage and also a means to collect information for the optimizer.

I'm guessing here, but it would seem to me that once the 'reclaim' portion
was written, it probably seemed like a good a place as any to put the
stat-collecting code? As long as the entire database was being scanned
anyway, why not collect statistics.

Perhaps its time for the two functions to be separated - controlled by an
option?
Perhaps VACUUM STATONLY could collect stats, not lock table and not reclaim
space.

Actually, I'm thinking any seq-scan could collect the stats on the way
through?

Frank