Implement a function "estimated_count" that can be used instead of "count". It could use something like the algorithm in src/backend/commands/analyze.c to get a reasonably accurate psuedo count quickly.
The advantage of this approach is that "count" still means (exact)count (for your xact snapshot anyway). Then the situation becomes:
Want a fast count? - use estimated_count(*) Want an exact count - use count(*)
regards
Mark
Christopher Browne wrote:
For a small table, it will be cheaper to walk through and calculate count(*) directly from the tuples themselves.
The situation where it may be worthwhile to do this is a table which
is rather large (thus count(*) is expensive) where there is some
special reason to truly care how many rows there are in the table.
For _most_ tables, it seems unlikely that this will be true. For
_most_ tables, it is absolutely not worth the cost of tracking the
information.
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