</para>
<para>
- Currently, only the B-tree, GiST and GIN index types support multicolumn
+ Currently, only the B-tree, GiST, GIN, and BRIN
+ index types support multicolumn
indexes. Up to 32 columns can be specified. (This limit can be
altered when building <productname>PostgreSQL</productname>; see the
file <filename>pg_config_manual.h</filename>.)
the query conditions use.
</para>
+ <para>
+ A multicolumn BRIN index can be used with query conditions that
+ involve any subset of the index's columns. Like GIN and unlike B-tree or
+ GiST, index search effectiveness is the same regardless of which index
+ column(s) the query conditions use. The only reason to have multiple BRIN
+ indexes instead of one multicolumn BRIN index on a single table is to have
+ a different <literal>pages_per_range</literal> storage parameter.
+ </para>
+
<para>
Of course, each column must be used with operators appropriate to the index
type; clauses that involve other operators will not be considered.