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https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/IMPALA-7310?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel&focusedCommentId=16621171#comment-16621171
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Paul Rogers commented on IMPALA-7310:
-------------------------------------

The original description pointed out the method that computes the compound NDV:

{noformat}
    for (Expr expr: exprs) {
      if (expr.getNumDistinctValues() == -1) {
        numDistinctValues = -1;
        break;
      }
      numDistinctValues *= expr.getNumDistinctValues();
    }
{noformat}

This logic says, essentially, "if I don't know the actual NDV for any one group 
of rows, then I don't know the NDV for the combination." This is literally 
true. But, we ultimately need to make a decision: using some information is 
better than using none.

Perhaps, when we don't know the NDV, we should assume one:

* If the NDV > 0, use it.
* If 0 and we have metadata, assume 1.
* If 0 and we have no metadata, assume 10 (see above.)

As suggested in a previous node, perhaps we can compute this number in each 
node (because each node has the most information about the best a-priority 
estimate for that expression/operator.) Then, we allow those a-priority 
estimates to bubble up the tree with no special handling.

If we want, we could flag each node with a the source of the info (the three 
cases above) to aid in debugging.

> Compute Stats not computing NULLs as a distinct value causing wrong estimates
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>                 Key: IMPALA-7310
>                 URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/IMPALA-7310
>             Project: IMPALA
>          Issue Type: Bug
>          Components: Frontend
>    Affects Versions: Impala 2.7.0, Impala 2.8.0, Impala 2.9.0, Impala 2.10.0, 
> Impala 2.11.0, Impala 3.0, Impala 2.12.0
>            Reporter: Zsombor Fedor
>            Assignee: Paul Rogers
>            Priority: Major
>
> As seen in other DBMSs
> {code:java}
> NDV(col){code}
> not counting NULL as a distinct value. The same also applies to
> {code:java}
> COUNT(DISTINCT col){code}
> This is working as intended, but when computing column statistics it can 
> cause some anomalies (i.g. bad join order) as compute stats uses NDV() to 
> determine columns NDVs.
>  
> For example when aggregating more columns, the estimated cardinality is 
> [counted as the product of the columns' number of distinct 
> values.|https://github.com/cloudera/Impala/blob/64cd0bb0c3529efa0ab5452c4e9e2a04fd815b4f/fe/src/main/java/org/apache/impala/analysis/Expr.java#L669]
>  If there is a column full of NULLs the whole product will be 0.
>  
> There are two possible fix for this.
> Either we should count NULLs as a distinct value when Computing Stats in the 
> query:
> {code:java}
> SELECT NDV(a) + COUNT(DISTINCT CASE WHEN a IS NULL THEN 1 END) AS a, CAST(-1 
> as BIGINT), 4, CAST(4 as DOUBLE) FROM test;{code}
> instead of
> {code:java}
> SELECT NDV(a) AS a, CAST(-1 as BIGINT), 4, CAST(4 as DOUBLE) FROM test;{code}
>  
>  
> Or we should change the planner 
> [function|https://github.com/cloudera/Impala/blob/2d2579cb31edda24457d33ff5176d79b7c0432c5/fe/src/main/java/org/apache/impala/planner/AggregationNode.java#L169]
>  to take care of this bug.
>  



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