Statistics can be read in from a text file. The input file must conform to a certain format, which is identical to that produced when you direct output to a file when displaying statistics. Display Optimizer Statistics provides more information.

The file can be edited to reflect changes in data distribution as required, before submitting the file for use during the optimization process. However, this can potentially mislead the query optimizer into generating poor query plans. Manually editing statistics must be done only if you have a full understanding of the data and how the statistics are used in Ingres.

Details on creating and using text files as input when optimizing a database are provided in Statistics in Text Files.