Syntax:
ANALYZE [NO_WRITE_TO_BINLOG | LOCAL] TABLE
    tbl_name [, tbl_name] ...

ANALYZE TABLE analyzes and stores the key distribution for a table.
During the analysis, the table is locked with a read lock for MyISAM,
BDB, and InnoDB. This statement works with MyISAM, BDB, InnoDB, and NDB
tables. For MyISAM tables, this statement is equivalent to using
myisamchk --analyze-

For more information on how the analysis works within InnoDB, see
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/innodb-restrictions.html.

MySQL uses the stored key distribution to decide the order in which
tables should be joined when you perform a join on something other than
a constant. In addition, key distributions can be used when deciding
which indexes to use for a specific table within a query.

This statement requires SELECT and INSERT privileges for the table.

URL: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/analyze-table.html

