statistics

Various articles about SQL Server statistics. When statistics really change? Get statistics info about an index.

When statistics were last updated in SQL Server?

T-SQL showing when statistics were last updated using STATS_DATE function in SQL Server:

SELECT
        OBJECT_NAME(S.object_id) as object_name,  S.name as stat_name,
        S.auto_created, S.user_created, S.no_recompute,
        STATS_DATE(S.object_id, stats_id) as last_updated
FROM
        sys.stats S
        INNER JOIN sys.objects O ON O.object_id = S.object_id AND O.is_ms_shipped = 0
ORDER BY object_name

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How to (manually) update the statistics?

  • Force stats to update for a specific table (including clause WITH FULLSCAN)
    UPDATE STATISTICS <tablename>;
  • Full sampling:
    UPDATE STATISTICS <tableName> (<columnName>) WITH FULLSCAN;
  • Force stats to update for the entire database:
    EXEC sp_updatestats;

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When statistics really change?

Stats change:

  • When a table with no rows gets a row
  • When a table has fewer than 500 rows and is increased by 500 or more rows
  • Through SQL Server's auto-updating mechanism based on database option AUTO_UPDATE_STATISTICS (which by default is enabled and it performs synchronously), statistics get automatically changed when 500 + 20% of the table rows change. E.g. for a table with 100k rows, stats will get invalidated when 20500 rows are updated. Read more about this.
  • In addition to statistics on indexes, SQL Server can build statistics on columns with no indexes. See AUTO_CREATE_STATISTICS option.
  • If trace flag 2371 is turned on, then updates are dynamic Read more about this.
  • When you rebuild an index (equivalent to FULLSCAN).
  • Or you can decide to manually update the statistics.

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Get statistics info about an index

DBCC SHOW_STATISTICS returns info about 3 components:
- header
- density vector
- histogram = is a statistical construct that shows how often data falls into varying categories. The histogram stored by SQL Server consists of a sampling of data distribution for a column or an index key of up to 200 rows.

DBCC SHOW_STATISTICS('<tablename>', '<indexname>');

You can limit the statistics information displayed by using WITH HISTOGRAM clause:

DBCC SHOW_STATISTICS('<tablename>', '<indexname>')
WITH HISTOGRAM;

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