> > I went through the code (7.4 beta2) that estimates the cost of an index
> > scan path. What I need to be sure of is that when running a query in
> > pgsql that uses only the columns that are in an index, the underlying
> > table need not be accessed. I know that Oracle does this.
PostgreSQL absolutely does not do this. It is also not possible to do this
due to MVCC.
Chris