On the Relative Cost of Sampling for Join Selectivity Estimation

Summary: Quantifies when sampling (t_cross) is cheaper than computing the exact star-join for selectivity estimation, deriving bounds and approximations for relative cost as functions of input relation sizes, arity, and the estimator's precision criterion. Identifies dangling tuples as a major negative factor and characterizes mixed effects of data skew, yielding concrete regimes and thresholds that indicate when sampling is or isn't cost-effective for join selectivity estimation. (summarized by gpt-5-mini on Feb 09 2026)

Paper ID: 1012
Venue: PODS
Year: 1994
Pagerank: 0.00016438972
Overall Rank: 803 | 94.43%
DOI: -

Incoming Non-self Citations Over Time

Authors

Incoming Citations (Sorted by Pagerank)

Showing 12 of 12 citing papers.

Rank	Citing Paper	Year	Venue	Pagerank
18	On Random Sampling over Joins	1999	SIGMOD	0.00092569117
212	Join Synopses for Approximate Query Answering	1999	SIGMOD	0.00033997204
216	Ripple Joins for Online Aggregation	1999	SIGMOD	0.00033560137
553	Bifocal Sampling for Skew-Resistant Join Size Estimation	1996	SIGMOD	0.00020272747
1,727	QuickSel: Quick Selectivity Learning with Mixture Models	2020	SIGMOD	0.00010731889
2,971	Estimating Join Selectivities using Bandwidth-Optimized Kernel Density Models	2017	VLDB	7.7935535e-05
3,924	A Unified Deep Model of Learning from both Data and Queries for Cardinality Estimation	2021	SIGMOD	6.6227223e-05
6,543	Query Sampling in DB2 Universal Database	2004	SIGMOD	5.0139217e-05
9,690	Selectivity Estimation for Queries Containing Predicates over Set-Valued Attributes	2023	SIGMOD	4.2994116e-05
9,837	Efficiently Joining Large Relations on Multi-GPU Systems	2025	VLDB	4.269939e-05
10,598	ACE: A Cardinality Estimator for Set-Valued Queries	2025	VLDB	4.1905499e-05
10,647	Cardinality Estimation for Having-Clauses	2025	VLDB	4.1905499e-05

Outgoing Citations (Sorted by Pagerank)

Showing 11 of 11 cited papers.

Citations counted here include only citations to other VLDB/SIGMOD/CIDR/PODS papers in this database.

Rank	Cited Paper	Year	Venue	Pagerank
37	Statistical Estimators for Relational Algebra Expressions	1988	PODS	0.00075597514
46	Simple Random Sampling from Relational Databases	1986	VLDB	0.00071588702
92	Practical Selectivity Estimation through Adaptive Sampling	1990	SIGMOD	0.00051431888
133	Processing Aggregate Relational Queries with Hard Time Constraints	1989	SIGMOD	0.00043220055
291	Error-Constrained COUNT Query Evaluation in Relational Databases	1991	SIGMOD	0.00028778973
352	Random Sampling from B+ trees	1989	VLDB	0.00026276293
369	Sequential Sampling Procedures For Query Size Estimation	1992	SIGMOD	0.00025502381
751	Query Size Estimation by Adaptive Sampling (Extended Abstract)	1990	PODS	0.00017155121
764	Random Sampling from Hash Files	1990	SIGMOD	0.00016958917
897	Estimating the Size of Generalized Transitive Closures	1989	VLDB	0.00015484372
1,254	Fixed-Precision Estimation of Join Selectivity	1993	PODS	0.00013018797

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751	Query Size Estimation by Adaptive Sampling (Extended Abstract)	1990	PODS	0.00017155121
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1,194	Join Size Estimation Subject to Filter Conditions	2015	VLDB	0.00013411666
550	Tracking Join and Self-Join Sizes in Limited Storage	1999	PODS	0.00020346247
92	Practical Selectivity Estimation through Adaptive Sampling	1990	SIGMOD	0.00051431888
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