<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"> <HTML ><HEAD ><TITLE >System Views</TITLE ><META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Modular DocBook HTML Stylesheet Version 1.79"><LINK REV="MADE" HREF="mailto:pgsql-docs@postgresql.org"><LINK REL="HOME" TITLE="PostgreSQL 8.0.11 Documentation" HREF="index.html"><LINK REL="UP" TITLE="System Catalogs" HREF="catalogs.html"><LINK REL="PREVIOUS" TITLE="pg_type" HREF="catalog-pg-type.html"><LINK REL="NEXT" TITLE="pg_indexes" HREF="view-pg-indexes.html"><LINK REL="STYLESHEET" TYPE="text/css" HREF="stylesheet.css"><META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"><META NAME="creation" CONTENT="2007-02-02T03:57:22"></HEAD ><BODY CLASS="SECT1" ><DIV CLASS="NAVHEADER" ><TABLE SUMMARY="Header navigation table" WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TH COLSPAN="5" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="bottom" >PostgreSQL 8.0.11 Documentation</TH ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="catalog-pg-type.html" ACCESSKEY="P" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="catalogs.html" >Fast Backward</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="60%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="bottom" >Chapter 41. System Catalogs</TD ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="catalogs.html" >Fast Forward</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="view-pg-indexes.html" ACCESSKEY="N" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ></TABLE ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"></DIV ><DIV CLASS="SECT1" ><H1 CLASS="SECT1" ><A NAME="VIEWS-OVERVIEW" >41.31. System Views</A ></H1 ><P > In addition to the system catalogs, <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >PostgreSQL</SPAN > provides a number of built-in views. Some system views provide convenient access to some commonly used queries on the system catalogs. Other views provide access to internal server state. </P ><P > The information schema (<A HREF="information-schema.html" >Chapter 30</A >) provides an alternative set of views which overlap the functionality of the system views. Since the information schema is SQL-standard whereas the views described here are <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >PostgreSQL</SPAN >-specific, it's usually better to use the information schema if it provides all the information you need. </P ><P > <A HREF="views-overview.html#VIEW-TABLE" >Table 41-31</A > lists the system views described here. More detailed documentation of each view follows below. There are some additional views that provide access to the results of the statistics collector; they are described in <A HREF="monitoring-stats.html#MONITORING-STATS-VIEWS-TABLE" >Table 23-1</A >. </P ><P > Except where noted, all the views described here are read-only. </P ><DIV CLASS="TABLE" ><A NAME="VIEW-TABLE" ></A ><P ><B >Table 41-31. System Views</B ></P ><TABLE BORDER="1" CLASS="CALSTABLE" ><COL><COL><THEAD ><TR ><TH >View Name</TH ><TH >Purpose</TH ></TR ></THEAD ><TBODY ><TR ><TD ><A HREF="view-pg-indexes.html" ><TT CLASS="STRUCTNAME" >pg_indexes</TT ></A ></TD ><TD >indexes</TD ></TR ><TR ><TD ><A HREF="view-pg-locks.html" ><TT CLASS="STRUCTNAME" >pg_locks</TT ></A ></TD ><TD >currently held locks</TD ></TR ><TR ><TD ><A HREF="view-pg-rules.html" ><TT CLASS="STRUCTNAME" >pg_rules</TT ></A ></TD ><TD >rules</TD ></TR ><TR ><TD ><A HREF="view-pg-settings.html" ><TT CLASS="STRUCTNAME" >pg_settings</TT ></A ></TD ><TD >parameter settings</TD ></TR ><TR ><TD ><A HREF="view-pg-stats.html" ><TT CLASS="STRUCTNAME" >pg_stats</TT ></A ></TD ><TD >planner statistics</TD ></TR ><TR ><TD ><A HREF="view-pg-tables.html" ><TT CLASS="STRUCTNAME" >pg_tables</TT ></A ></TD ><TD >tables</TD ></TR ><TR ><TD ><A HREF="view-pg-user.html" ><TT CLASS="STRUCTNAME" >pg_user</TT ></A ></TD ><TD >database users</TD ></TR ><TR ><TD ><A HREF="view-pg-views.html" ><TT CLASS="STRUCTNAME" >pg_views</TT ></A ></TD ><TD >views</TD ></TR ></TBODY ></TABLE ></DIV ></DIV ><DIV CLASS="NAVFOOTER" ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"><TABLE SUMMARY="Footer navigation table" WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="catalog-pg-type.html" ACCESSKEY="P" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="index.html" ACCESSKEY="H" >Home</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="view-pg-indexes.html" ACCESSKEY="N" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" ><TT CLASS="STRUCTNAME" >pg_type</TT ></TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="catalogs.html" ACCESSKEY="U" >Up</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ><TT CLASS="STRUCTNAME" >pg_indexes</TT ></TD ></TR ></TABLE ></DIV ></BODY ></HTML >