Techniques are described herein for computing columnar information during join enumeration in a database system. The computation occurs in two phases: the first phase involves a pre-computational phase that is only run once per query block to initialize and prepare a set of data structures. The second phase is an incremental approach that takes place for every query sub-plan. Upon completion of the second phase, the generated projected attributes of a query sub-plan are associated as columnar information associated with the query sub-plan, and used to compute the query execution cost. Subsequently, based on the computed query execution cost, the query sub-plan may be executed as part of the query execution plan.