Marcin Borkowski: 2026-03-14 Selecting a sample of a PostgreSQL table (opens in new tab)

Today I have a nice SQL tip about sampling tables in SQL. (I’m writing about PostgreSQL as usual but this applies to other databases, too, since this feature is in the SQL standard.) Imagine you have a large table and you want to get a general feeling about what its contents look like. Saying select * from my_table limit 10 may be a nice idea, but it doesn’t always suffice. For example, if you have a table where you never delete or update rows, only insert them, that query will often just sho...