SQL COMMANDS / INDEXES & STATISTICS

ALTER STATISTICS

change the definition of an extended statistics object

Syntax

ALTER STATISTICS name OWNER TO { new_owner | CURRENT_ROLE | CURRENT_USER | SESSION_USER }
ALTER STATISTICS name RENAME TO new_name
ALTER STATISTICS name SET SCHEMA new_schema
ALTER STATISTICS name SET STATISTICS { new_target | DEFAULT }

Syntax diagrams

Read left to right. Branches are choices, bypasses are optional, loops repeat. Select an underlined parameter to open its rule.

ALTER STATISTICS · Syntax 2

ALTER STATISTICS · Syntax 3

ALTER STATISTICS · Syntax 4

Description

ALTER STATISTICS changes the parameters of an existing extended statistics object. Any parameters not specifically set in the ALTER STATISTICS command retain their prior settings.

You must own the statistics object to use ALTER STATISTICS. To change a statistics object's schema, you must also have CREATE privilege on the new schema. To alter the owner, you must be able to SET ROLE to the new owning role, and that role must have CREATE privilege on the statistics object's schema. (These restrictions enforce that altering the owner doesn't do anything you couldn't do by dropping and recreating the statistics object. However, a superuser can alter ownership of any statistics object anyway.)

Parameters

name: The name (optionally schema-qualified) of the statistics object to be altered.
new_owner: The user name of the new owner of the statistics object.
new_name: The new name for the statistics object.
new_schema: The new schema for the statistics object.
new_target: The statistic-gathering target for this statistics object for subsequent ANALYZE operations. The target can be set in the range 0 to 10000. Set it to DEFAULT to revert to using the system default statistics target (default_statistics_target). (Setting to a value of -1 is an obsolete way spelling to get the same outcome.) For more information on the use of statistics by the PostgreSQL query planner, refer to Section 14.2.

Compatibility

There is no ALTER STATISTICS command in the SQL standard.

Related entries

Definition snapshot: 2026-09-14T13:14:25.700916+00:00@99e6866c · English manual source