What does UPDATE STATISTICS command do

• rajeshrajesh

  SSC-Addicted

  Points: 425

  More actions

  August 9, 2010 at 9:07 am

  #227616

  Hi All

  can any one tell me briefly what does this UPDATE STATISTICS command do on table

  Please give it me very briefly

  Thanks

• Steve Jones - SSC Editor

  SSC Guru

  Points: 736270

  More actions

  August 9, 2010 at 9:13 am

  #1204229

  Do you know what statistics are? They are a sampling of the table that tries to determine what the distribution of data is for that particular column. This helps the optimizer in determining if the index will help in a query.

  This command (UPDATE STATISTICS, http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa260645%28SQL.80%29.aspx), updates those statistics by sampling the data in the table. You can also control how much of the table is sampled.

  You can view the distrubution for a column with DBCC SHOW_STATISTICS (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa258821%28v=SQL.80%29.aspx)