Michael Paquier <michael.paquier@gmail.com> writes:
> On Sat, Nov 2, 2013 at 10:28 PM, Andrew Dunstan <andrew@dunslane.net> wrote:
>> What exactly would be the point? Indexes are automatically maintained by
>> postgres. Something that isn't doesn't seem to me to qualify for the
>> description of "index".
> Perhaps an index without data that could be used by the planner for
> automatic query tuning to evaluate how a query could run if the index
> exists? Like the concept of hypothetical indexes or something like the
> possibility to do a CREATE/ALTER INDEX ... WITH [ NO ] DATA.
But we already provide support for hypothetical indexes via planner
plugins. Why would you need an actual empty index underlying that?
I agree with Andrew that the use-case for this hasn't been explained.
regards, tom lane
