The innodb_stats_auto_recalc configuration option, which is enabled by default, determines whether statistics are calculated automatically whenever a table undergoes substantial changes (to more than 10% of the rows). You can also configure automatic statistics recalculation for individual tables using a STATS_AUTO_RECALC clause in a CREATE TABLE or ALTER TABLE statement. innodb_stats_auto_recalc is enabled by default.

Because of the asynchronous nature of automatic statistics recalculation (which occurs in the background), statistics may not be recalculated instantly after running a DML operation that affects more than 10% of a table, even when innodb_stats_auto_recalc is enabled. In some cases, statistics recalculation may be delayed by a few seconds. If up-to-date statistics are required immediately after changing significant portions of a table, run ANALYZE TABLE to initiate a synchronous (foreground) recalculation of statistics.

If innodb_stats_auto_recalc is disabled, ensure the accuracy of optimizer statistics by issuing the ANALYZE TABLE statement for each applicable table after making substantial changes to indexed columns. You might run this statement in your setup scripts after representative data has been loaded into the table, and run it periodically after DML operations significantly change the contents of indexed columns, or on a schedule at times of low activity. When a new index is added to an existing table, index statistics are calculated and added to the innodb_index_stats table regardless of the value of innodb_stats_auto_recalc.

innodb_stats_persistent, innodb_stats_auto_recalc, and innodb_stats_persistent_sample_pages are global configuration options. To override these system-wide settings and configure optimizer statistics parameters for individual tables, you can define STATS_PERSISTENT, STATS_AUTO_RECALC, and STATS_SAMPLE_PAGES clauses in CREATE TABLE or ALTER TABLE statements.

All three clauses are specified in the following CREATE TABLE example:

CREATE TABLE `t1` (
`id` int(8) NOT NULL auto_increment,
`data` varchar(255),
`date` datetime,
PRIMARY KEY  (`id`),
INDEX `DATE_IX` (`date`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB,
  STATS_PERSISTENT=1,
  STATS_AUTO_RECALC=1,
  STATS_SAMPLE_PAGES=25;

The MySQL query optimizer uses estimated statistics about key distributions to choose the indexes for an execution plan, based on the relative selectivity of the index. Operations such as ANALYZE TABLE cause InnoDB to sample random pages from each index on a table to estimate the cardinality of the index. (This technique is known as random dives.)

To give you control over the quality of the statistics estimate (and thus better information for the query optimizer), you can change the number of sampled pages using the parameter innodb_stats_persistent_sample_pages, which can be set at runtime.

innodb_stats_persistent_sample_pages has a default value of 20. As a general guideline, consider modifying this parameter when encountering the following issues:

By default, InnoDB reads uncommitted data when calculating statistics. In the case of an uncommitted transaction that deletes rows from a table, InnoDB excludes records that are delete-marked when calculating row estimates and index statistics, which can lead to non-optimal execution plans for other transactions that are operating on the table concurrently using a transaction isolation level other than READ UNCOMMITTED. To avoid this scenario, innodb_stats_include_delete_marked can be enabled to ensure that InnoDB includes delete-marked records when calculating persistent optimizer statistics.

When innodb_stats_include_delete_marked is enabled, ANALYZE TABLE considers delete-marked records when recalculating statistics.

innodb_stats_include_delete_marked is a global setting that affects all InnoDB tables, and it is only applicable to persistent optimizer statistics.

innodb_stats_include_delete_marked was introduced in MySQL 5.6.34.

The persistent statistics feature relies on the internally managed tables in the mysql database, named innodb_table_stats and innodb_index_stats. These tables are set up automatically in all install, upgrade, and build-from-source procedures.

Both the innodb_table_stats and innodb_index_stats tables include a last_update column showing when InnoDB last updated index statistics, as shown in the following example:

mysql> select * from innodb_table_stats \G
*************************** 1. row ***************************
           database_name: sakila
              table_name: actor
             last_update: 2014-05-28 16:16:44
                  n_rows: 200
    clustered_index_size: 1
sum_of_other_index_sizes: 1
...

mysql> select * from innodb_index_stats \G
*************************** 1. row ***************************
   database_name: sakila
      table_name: actor
      index_name: PRIMARY
     last_update: 2014-05-28 16:16:44
       stat_name: n_diff_pfx01
      stat_value: 200
     sample_size: 1
     ...

The innodb_table_stats and innodb_index_stats tables are ordinary tables and can be updated manually. The ability to update statistics manually makes it possible to force a specific query optimization plan or test alternative plans without modifying the database. If you manually update statistics, issue the FLUSH TABLE tbl_name command to make MySQL reload the updated statistics.

The innodb_table_stats table contains one row per table. The data collected is demonstrated in the following example.

Table t1 contains a primary index (columns a, b) secondary index (columns c, d), and unique index (columns e, f):

CREATE TABLE t1 (
a INT, b INT, c INT, d INT, e INT, f INT,
PRIMARY KEY (a, b), KEY i1 (c, d), UNIQUE KEY i2uniq (e, f)
) ENGINE=INNODB;

After inserting five rows of sample data, the table appears as follows:

mysql> SELECT * FROM t1;
+---+---+------+------+------+------+
| a | b | c    | d    | e    | f    |
+---+---+------+------+------+------+
| 1 | 1 |   10 |   11 |  100 |  101 |
| 1 | 2 |   10 |   11 |  200 |  102 |
| 1 | 3 |   10 |   11 |  100 |  103 |
| 1 | 4 |   10 |   12 |  200 |  104 |
| 1 | 5 |   10 |   12 |  100 |  105 |
+---+---+------+------+------+------+

To immediately update statistics, run ANALYZE TABLE (if innodb_stats_auto_recalc is enabled, statistics are updated automatically within a few seconds assuming that the 10% threshold for changed table rows is reached):

mysql> ANALYZE TABLE t1;
+---------+---------+----------+----------+
| Table   | Op      | Msg_type | Msg_text |
+---------+---------+----------+----------+
| test.t1 | analyze | status   | OK       |
+---------+---------+----------+----------+

Table statistics for table t1 show the last time InnoDB updated the table statistics (2014-03-14 14:36:34), the number of rows in the table (5), the clustered index size (1 page), and the combined size of the other indexes (2 pages).

mysql> SELECT * FROM mysql.innodb_table_stats WHERE table_name like 't1'\G
*************************** 1. row ***************************
           database_name: test
              table_name: t1
             last_update: 2014-03-14 14:36:34
                  n_rows: 5
    clustered_index_size: 1
sum_of_other_index_sizes: 2

The innodb_index_stats table contains multiple rows for each index. Each row in the innodb_index_stats table provides data related to a particular index statistic which is named in the stat_name column and described in the stat_description column. For example:

mysql> SELECT index_name, stat_name, stat_value, stat_description
    -> FROM mysql.innodb_index_stats WHERE table_name like 't1';
+------------+--------------+------------+-----------------------------------+
| index_name | stat_name    | stat_value | stat_description                  |
+------------+--------------+------------+-----------------------------------+
| PRIMARY    | n_diff_pfx01 |          1 | a                                 |
| PRIMARY    | n_diff_pfx02 |          5 | a,b                               |
| PRIMARY    | n_leaf_pages |          1 | Number of leaf pages in the index |
| PRIMARY    | size         |          1 | Number of pages in the index      |
| i1         | n_diff_pfx01 |          1 | c                                 |
| i1         | n_diff_pfx02 |          2 | c,d                               |
| i1         | n_diff_pfx03 |          2 | c,d,a                             |
| i1         | n_diff_pfx04 |          5 | c,d,a,b                           |
| i1         | n_leaf_pages |          1 | Number of leaf pages in the index |
| i1         | size         |          1 | Number of pages in the index      |
| i2uniq     | n_diff_pfx01 |          2 | e                                 |
| i2uniq     | n_diff_pfx02 |          5 | e,f                               |
| i2uniq     | n_leaf_pages |          1 | Number of leaf pages in the index |
| i2uniq     | size         |          1 | Number of pages in the index      |
+------------+--------------+------------+-----------------------------------+

The stat_name column shows the following types of statistics:

To further illustrate the n_diff_pfxNN statistic, which provides cardinality data, consider the t1 table example. As shown below, the t1 table is created with a primary index (columns a, b), a secondary index (columns c, d), and a unique index (columns e, f):

CREATE TABLE t1 (
  a INT, b INT, c INT, d INT, e INT, f INT,
  PRIMARY KEY (a, b), KEY i1 (c, d), UNIQUE KEY i2uniq (e, f)
) ENGINE=INNODB;

After inserting five rows of sample data, the table appears as follows:

mysql> SELECT * FROM t1;
+---+---+------+------+------+------+
| a | b | c    | d    | e    | f    |
+---+---+------+------+------+------+
| 1 | 1 |   10 |   11 |  100 |  101 |
| 1 | 2 |   10 |   11 |  200 |  102 |
| 1 | 3 |   10 |   11 |  100 |  103 |
| 1 | 4 |   10 |   12 |  200 |  104 |
| 1 | 5 |   10 |   12 |  100 |  105 |
+---+---+------+------+------+------+

When you query the index_name, stat_name, stat_value, and stat_description where stat_name LIKE 'n_diff%', the following result set is returned:

mysql> SELECT index_name, stat_name, stat_value, stat_description
    -> FROM mysql.innodb_index_stats
    -> WHERE table_name like 't1' AND stat_name LIKE 'n_diff%';
+------------+--------------+------------+------------------+
| index_name | stat_name    | stat_value | stat_description |
+------------+--------------+------------+------------------+
| PRIMARY    | n_diff_pfx01 |          1 | a                |
| PRIMARY    | n_diff_pfx02 |          5 | a,b              |
| i1         | n_diff_pfx01 |          1 | c                |
| i1         | n_diff_pfx02 |          2 | c,d              |
| i1         | n_diff_pfx03 |          2 | c,d,a            |
| i1         | n_diff_pfx04 |          5 | c,d,a,b          |
| i2uniq     | n_diff_pfx01 |          2 | e                |
| i2uniq     | n_diff_pfx02 |          5 | e,f              |
+------------+--------------+------------+------------------+

For the PRIMARY index, there are two n_diff% rows. The number of rows is equal to the number of columns in the index.

For the secondary index (i1), there are four n_diff% rows. Only two columns are defined for the secondary index (c,d) but there are four n_diff% rows for the secondary index because InnoDB suffixes all non-unique indexes with the primary key. As a result, there are four n_diff% rows instead of two to account for the both the secondary index columns (c,d) and the primary key columns (a,b).

For the unique index (i2uniq), there are two n_diff% rows.

The size of indexes for tables, partitions, or subpartitions can be retrieved using the innodb_index_stats table. In the following example, index sizes are retrieved for table t1. For a definition of table t1 and corresponding index statistics, see Section 14.6.11.1.6, “InnoDB Persistent Statistics Tables Example”.

mysql> SELECT SUM(stat_value) pages, index_name,
    -> SUM(stat_value)*@@innodb_page_size size
    -> FROM mysql.innodb_index_stats WHERE table_name='t1'
    -> AND stat_name = 'size' GROUP BY index_name;
+-------+------------+-------+
| pages | index_name | size  |
+-------+------------+-------+
|     1 | PRIMARY    | 16384 |
|     1 | i1         | 16384 |
|     1 | i2uniq     | 16384 |
+-------+------------+-------+

For partitions or subpartitions, the same query with a modified WHERE clause can be used to retrieve index sizes. For example, the following query retrieves index sizes for partitions of table t1:

mysql> SELECT SUM(stat_value) pages, index_name,
    -> SUM(stat_value)*@@innodb_page_size size
    -> FROM mysql.innodb_index_stats WHERE table_name like 't1#P%'
    -> AND stat_name = 'size' GROUP BY index_name;