9.27. System Information Functions and Operators
- 9.27.1. Session Information Functions
- 9.27.2. Access Privilege Inquiry Functions
- 9.27.3. Schema Visibility Inquiry Functions
- 9.27.4. System Catalog Information Functions
- 9.27.5. Object Information and Addressing Functions
- 9.27.6. Comment Information Functions
- 9.27.7. Data Validity Checking Functions
- 9.27.8. Transaction ID and Snapshot Information Functions
- 9.27.9. Committed Transaction Information Functions
- 9.27.10. Control Data Functions
- 9.27.11. Version Information Functions
- 9.27.12. WAL Summarization Information Functions
The functions described in this section are used to obtain various information about a PostgreSQL installation.
9.27.1. Session Information Functions #
Table 9.69 shows several functions that extract session and system information.
In addition to the functions listed in this section, there are a number of functions related to the statistics system that also provide system information. See Section 27.2.26 for more information.
Table 9.69. Session Information Functions
| Function Description | 
|---|
| 
         Returns the name of the current database.  (Databases are
        called
         
          "
          
           catalogs
          
          "
         
         in the SQL standard,
        so
          | 
| Returns the text of the currently executing query, as submitted by the client (which might contain more than one statement). | 
| 
         This is equivalent to
          | 
| 
          Returns the name of the schema that is first in the search path (or a null value if the search path is empty). This is the schema that will be used for any tables or other named objects that are created without specifying a target schema. | 
| 
         
         
         
         
          
         Returns an array of the names of all schemas presently in the
        effective search path, in their priority order.  (Items in the current
         
          search_path
         
         setting that do not correspond to
        existing, searchable schemas are omitted.)  If the Boolean argument
        is
          | 
| Returns the user name of the current execution context. | 
| 
         Returns the IP address of the current client,
        or
          | 
| 
         Returns the IP port number of the current client,
        or
          | 
| 
         Returns the IP address on which the server accepted the current
        connection,
        or
          | 
| 
         Returns the IP port number on which the server accepted the current
        connection,
        or
          | 
| Returns the process ID of the server process attached to the current session. | 
| 
         
         
          Returns an array of the process ID(s) of the sessions that are blocking the server process with the specified process ID from acquiring a lock, or an empty array if there is no such server process or it is not blocked. 
         One server process blocks another if it either holds a lock that
        conflicts with the blocked process's lock request (hard block), or is
        waiting for a lock that would conflict with the blocked process's lock
        request and is ahead of it in the wait queue (soft block).  When using
        parallel queries the result always lists client-visible process IDs
        (that is,
          Frequent calls to this function could have some impact on database performance, because it needs exclusive access to the lock manager's shared state for a short time. | 
| 
         
         
          Returns the time when the server configuration files were last loaded. If the current session was alive at the time, this will be the time when the session itself re-read the configuration files (so the reading will vary a little in different sessions). Otherwise it is the time when the postmaster process re-read the configuration files. | 
| 
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
          
         Returns the path name of the log file currently in use by the logging
        collector.  The path includes the
         
          log_directory
         
         directory and the individual log file name.  The result
        is
          
         This function is restricted to superusers and roles with privileges of
        the
          | 
| Returns the OID of the current session's temporary schema, or zero if it has none (because it has not created any temporary tables). | 
| 
         
         
          Returns true if the given OID is the OID of another session's temporary schema. (This can be useful, for example, to exclude other sessions' temporary tables from a catalog display.) | 
| 
         Returns true if a
         
          JIT
         
         compiler extension is
        available (see
         
          Chapter 30
         
         ) and the
         
          jit
         
         configuration parameter is set to
          | 
| 
         
         
          Returns the set of names of asynchronous notification channels that the current session is listening to. | 
| 
         
         
          Returns the fraction (0–1) of the asynchronous notification queue's maximum size that is currently occupied by notifications that are waiting to be processed. See LISTEN and NOTIFY for more information. | 
| 
         
         
          Returns the time when the server started. | 
| 
         
         
          Returns an array of the process ID(s) of the sessions that are blocking the server process with the specified process ID from acquiring a safe snapshot, or an empty array if there is no such server process or it is not blocked. 
         A session running a
          Frequent calls to this function could have some impact on database performance, because it needs access to the predicate lock manager's shared state for a short time. | 
| Returns the current nesting level of PostgreSQL triggers (0 if not called, directly or indirectly, from inside a trigger). | 
| Returns the session user's name. | 
| 
         Returns the authentication method and the identity (if any) that the
        user presented during the authentication cycle before they were
        assigned a database role. It is represented as
          | 
| 
         This is equivalent to
          | 
Note
    
     current_catalog
    
    ,
    
     current_role
    
    ,
    
     current_schema
    
    ,
    
     current_user
    
    ,
    
     session_user
    
    ,
     and
    
     user
    
    have special syntactic status
     in
    
     SQL
    
    : they must be called without trailing
     parentheses.  In PostgreSQL, parentheses can optionally be used with
    
     current_schema
    
    , but not with the others.
   
   The
   
    session_user
   
   is normally the user who initiated
    the current database connection; but superusers can change this setting
    with
   
    
     SET SESSION AUTHORIZATION
    
   
   .
    The
   
    current_user
   
   is the user identifier
    that is applicable for permission checking. Normally it is equal
    to the session user, but it can be changed with
   
    
     SET ROLE
    
   
   .
    It also changes during the execution of
    functions with the attribute
   
    SECURITY DEFINER
   
   .
    In Unix parlance, the session user is the
   
    "
    
     real user
    
    "
   
   and
    the current user is the
   
    "
    
     effective user
    
    "
   
   .
   
    current_role
   
   and
   
    user
   
   are
    synonyms for
   
    current_user
   
   .  (The SQL standard draws
    a distinction between
   
    current_role
   
   and
   
    current_user
   
   , but
   
    PostgreSQL
   
   does not, since it unifies users and roles into a single kind of entity.)
  
9.27.2. Access Privilege Inquiry Functions #
   
    Table 9.70
   
   lists functions that
   allow querying object access privileges programmatically.
   (See
   
    Section 5.8
   
   for more information about
   privileges.)
   In these functions, the user whose privileges are being inquired about
   can be specified by name or by OID
   (
   
    pg_authid
   
   .
   
    oid
   
   ), or if
   the name is given as
   
    public
   
   then the privileges of the
   PUBLIC pseudo-role are checked.  Also, the
   
    
     user
    
   
   argument can be omitted entirely, in which case
   the
   
    current_user
   
   is assumed.
   The object that is being inquired about can be specified either by name or
   by OID, too.  When specifying by name, a schema name can be included if
   relevant.
   The access privilege of interest is specified by a text string, which must
   evaluate to one of the appropriate privilege keywords for the object's type
   (e.g.,
   
    SELECT
   
   ).  Optionally,
   
    WITH GRANT
   OPTION
   
   can be added to a privilege type to test whether the
   privilege is held with grant option. Also, multiple privilege types can be
   listed separated by commas, in which case the result will be true if any of
   the listed privileges is held. (Case of the privilege string is not
   significant, and extra whitespace is allowed between but not within
   privilege names.)
   Some examples:
  
SELECT has_table_privilege('myschema.mytable', 'select');
SELECT has_table_privilege('joe', 'mytable', 'INSERT, SELECT WITH GRANT OPTION');
  
Table 9.70. Access Privilege Inquiry Functions
| Function Description | 
|---|
| 
         
         
          
         Does user have privilege for any column of table?
        This succeeds either if the privilege is held for the whole table, or
        if there is a column-level grant of the privilege for at least one
        column.
        Allowable privilege types are
          | 
| 
         
         
          
         Does user have privilege for the specified table column?
        This succeeds either if the privilege is held for the whole table, or
        if there is a column-level grant of the privilege for the column.
        The column can be specified by name or by attribute number
        (
          | 
| 
         
         
          
         Does user have privilege for database?
        Allowable privilege types are
          | 
| 
         
         
          
         Does user have privilege for foreign-data wrapper?
        The only allowable privilege type is
          | 
| 
         
         
          
         Does user have privilege for function?
        The only allowable privilege type is
          
         When specifying a function by name rather than by OID, the allowed
        input is the same as for the
          
SELECT has_function_privilege('joeuser', 'myfunc(int, text)', 'execute');
 | 
| 
         
         
          
         Does user have privilege for language?
        The only allowable privilege type is
          | 
| 
         
         
          
         Does user have privilege for configuration parameter?
        The parameter name is case-insensitive.
        Allowable privilege types are
          | 
| 
         
         
          
         Does user have privilege for schema?
        Allowable privilege types are
          | 
| 
         
         
          
         Does user have privilege for sequence?
        Allowable privilege types are
          | 
| 
         
         
          
         Does user have privilege for foreign server?
        The only allowable privilege type is
          | 
| 
         
         
          
         Does user have privilege for table?
        Allowable privilege types
        are
          | 
| 
         
         
          
         Does user have privilege for tablespace?
        The only allowable privilege type is
          | 
| 
         
         
          
         Does user have privilege for data type?
        The only allowable privilege type is
          | 
| 
         
         
          
         Does user have privilege for role?
        Allowable privilege types are
          | 
| 
         
         
          Is row-level security active for the specified table in the context of the current user and current environment? | 
   
    Table 9.71
   
   shows the operators
   available for the
   
    aclitem
   
   type, which is the catalog
   representation of access privileges.  See
   
    Section 5.8
   
   for information about how to read access privilege values.
  
    
     Table 9.71. 
     
      aclitem
     
     Operators
    
   
   
    Table 9.72
   
   shows some additional
    functions to manage the
   
    aclitem
   
   type.
  
    
     Table 9.72. 
     
      aclitem
     
     Functions
    
   
| Function Description | 
|---|
| 
         
         
          
         Constructs an
          | 
| 
         
         
          
         Returns the
          | 
| 
         
         
          
         Constructs an
          | 
9.27.3. Schema Visibility Inquiry Functions #
Table 9.73 shows functions that determine whether a certain object is visible in the current schema search path. For example, a table is said to be visible if its containing schema is in the search path and no table of the same name appears earlier in the search path. This is equivalent to the statement that the table can be referenced by name without explicit schema qualification. Thus, to list the names of all visible tables:
SELECT relname FROM pg_class WHERE pg_table_is_visible(oid);
For functions and operators, an object in the search path is said to be visible if there is no object of the same name and argument data type(s) earlier in the path. For operator classes and families, both the name and the associated index access method are considered.
Table 9.73. Schema Visibility Inquiry Functions
   All these functions require object OIDs to identify the object to be
    checked.  If you want to test an object by name, it is convenient to use
    the OID alias types (
   
    regclass
   
   ,
   
    regtype
   
   ,
   
    regprocedure
   
   ,
   
    regoperator
   
   ,
   
    regconfig
   
   ,
    or
   
    regdictionary
   
   ),
    for example:
  
SELECT pg_type_is_visible('myschema.widget'::regtype);
  Note that it would not make much sense to test a non-schema-qualified type name in this way - if the name can be recognized at all, it must be visible.
9.27.4. System Catalog Information Functions #
Table 9.74 lists functions that extract information from the system catalogs.
Table 9.74. System Catalog Information Functions
| Function Description | 
|---|
| 
         
         
          Returns the SQL name for a data type that is identified by its type OID and possibly a type modifier. Pass NULL for the type modifier if no specific modifier is known. | 
| 
         
         
          Returns the OID of the base type of a domain identified by its type OID. If the argument is the OID of a non-domain type, returns the argument as-is. Returns NULL if the argument is not a valid type OID. If there's a chain of domain dependencies, it will recurse until finding the base type. 
         Assuming
          
          | 
| 
         
         
          
         Converts the supplied encoding name into an integer representing the
        internal identifier used in some system catalog tables.
        Returns
          | 
| 
         
         
          Converts the integer used as the internal identifier of an encoding in some system catalog tables into a human-readable string. Returns an empty string if an invalid encoding number is provided. | 
| 
         
         
          
         Returns a set of records describing the foreign key relationships
        that exist within the
         
          PostgreSQL
         
         system
        catalogs.
        The
         
           | 
| 
         
         
          Reconstructs the creating command for a constraint. (This is a decompiled reconstruction, not the original text of the command.) | 
| 
         
         
          Decompiles the internal form of an expression stored in the system catalogs, such as the default value for a column. If the expression might contain Vars, specify the OID of the relation they refer to as the second parameter; if no Vars are expected, passing zero is sufficient. | 
| 
         
         
          
         Reconstructs the creating command for a function or procedure.
        (This is a decompiled reconstruction, not the original text
        of the command.)
        The result is a complete
          | 
| 
         
         
          
         Reconstructs the argument list of a function or procedure, in the form
        it would need to appear in within
          | 
| 
         
         
          
         Reconstructs the argument list necessary to identify a function or
        procedure, in the form it would need to appear in within commands such
        as
          | 
| 
         
         
          
         Reconstructs the
          | 
| 
         
         
          
         Reconstructs the creating command for an index.
        (This is a decompiled reconstruction, not the original text
        of the command.)  If
         
           | 
| 
         
         
          
         Returns a set of records describing the SQL keywords recognized by the
        server.  The
         
           | 
| 
         
         
          
         Reconstructs the definition of a partitioned table's partition
        key, in the form it would have in the
          | 
| 
         
         
          Reconstructs the creating command for a rule. (This is a decompiled reconstruction, not the original text of the command.) | 
| 
         
         
          
         Returns the name of the sequence associated with a column,
        or NULL if no sequence is associated with the column.
        If the column is an identity column, the associated sequence is the
        sequence internally created for that column.
        For columns created using one of the serial types
        (
          A typical use is in reading the current value of the sequence for an identity or serial column, for example: 
SELECT currval(pg_get_serial_sequence('sometable', 'id'));
 | 
| 
         
         
          Reconstructs the creating command for an extended statistics object. (This is a decompiled reconstruction, not the original text of the command.) | 
| 
         
         
          Reconstructs the creating command for a trigger. (This is a decompiled reconstruction, not the original text of the command.) | 
| 
         
         
          Returns a role's name given its OID. | 
| 
         
         
          
         Reconstructs the underlying
          | 
| 
          
         Reconstructs the underlying
          | 
| 
          
         Reconstructs the underlying
          | 
| 
         
         
          
         Tests whether an index column has the named property.
        Common index column properties are listed in
         
          Table 9.75
         
         .
        (Note that extension access methods can define additional property
        names for their indexes.)
          | 
| 
         
         
          
         Tests whether an index has the named property.
        Common index properties are listed in
         
          Table 9.76
         
         .
        (Note that extension access methods can define additional property
        names for their indexes.)
          | 
| 
         
         
          
         Tests whether an index access method has the named property.
        Access method properties are listed in
         
          Table 9.77
         
         .
          | 
| 
         
         
          
         Returns the set of storage options represented by a value from
          | 
| 
         
         
          
         Returns an array of the flags associated with the given GUC, or
          | 
| 
         
         
          
         Returns the set of OIDs of databases that have objects stored in the
        specified tablespace.  If this function returns any rows, the
        tablespace is not empty and cannot be dropped.  To identify the specific
        objects populating the tablespace, you will need to connect to the
        database(s) identified by
          | 
| 
         
         
          Returns the file system path that this tablespace is located in. | 
| 
         Returns the OID of the data type of the value that is passed to it.
        This can be helpful for troubleshooting or dynamically constructing
        SQL queries.  The function is declared as
        returning
          
          | 
| 
         
         
          
         Returns the name of the collation of the value that is passed to it.
        The value is quoted and schema-qualified if necessary.  If no
        collation was derived for the argument expression,
        then
          
          
          | 
| 
         
         
          
         Translates a textual relation name to its OID.  A similar result is
        obtained by casting the string to type
          | 
| 
         
         
          
         Translates a textual collation name to its OID.  A similar result is
        obtained by casting the string to type
          | 
| 
         
         
          
         Translates a textual schema name to its OID.  A similar result is
        obtained by casting the string to type
          | 
| 
         Translates a textual operator name to its OID.  A similar result is
        obtained by casting the string to type
          | 
| 
         
         
          
         Translates a textual operator name (with parameter types) to its OID.  A similar result is
        obtained by casting the string to type
          | 
| 
         Translates a textual function or procedure name to its OID.  A similar result is
        obtained by casting the string to type
          | 
| 
         
         
          
         Translates a textual function or procedure name (with argument types) to its OID.  A similar result is
        obtained by casting the string to type
          | 
| 
         Translates a textual role name to its OID.  A similar result is
        obtained by casting the string to type
          | 
| 
         Parses a string of text, extracts a potential type name from it,
        and translates that name into a type OID.  A syntax error in the
        string will result in an error; but if the string is a
        syntactically valid type name that happens not to be found in the
        catalogs, the result is
          | 
| 
         
         
          
         Parses a string of text, extracts a potential type name from it,
        and translates its type modifier, if any.  A syntax error in the
        string will result in an error; but if the string is a
        syntactically valid type name that happens not to be found in the
        catalogs, the result is
          
          
          | 
   Most of the functions that reconstruct (decompile) database objects
   have an optional
   
    
     pretty
    
   
   flag, which
   if
   
    true
   
   causes the result to
   be
   
    "
    
     pretty-printed
    
    "
   
   .  Pretty-printing suppresses unnecessary
   parentheses and adds whitespace for legibility.
   The pretty-printed format is more readable, but the default format
   is more likely to be interpreted the same way by future versions of
   
    PostgreSQL
   
   ; so avoid using pretty-printed output
   for dump purposes.  Passing
   
    false
   
   for
   the
   
    
     pretty
    
   
   parameter yields the same result as
   omitting the parameter.
  
Table 9.75. Index Column Properties
| Name | Description | 
|---|---|
| 
         asc
         | Does the column sort in ascending order on a forward scan? | 
| 
         desc
         | Does the column sort in descending order on a forward scan? | 
| 
         nulls_first
         | Does the column sort with nulls first on a forward scan? | 
| 
         nulls_last
         | Does the column sort with nulls last on a forward scan? | 
| 
         orderable
         | Does the column possess any defined sort ordering? | 
| 
         distance_orderable
         | Can the column be scanned in order by a
        
         "
         
          distance
         
         "
        
        operator, for example 
         ORDER BY col <-> constant
        ? | 
| 
         returnable
         | Can the column value be returned by an index-only scan? | 
| 
         search_array
         | Does the column natively support 
         col = ANY(array)
        searches? | 
| 
         search_nulls
         | Does the column support 
         IS NULL
        and
         IS NOT NULL
        searches? | 
Table 9.76. Index Properties
| Name | Description | 
|---|---|
| 
         clusterable
         | Can the index be used in a 
         CLUSTER
        command? | 
| 
         index_scan
         | Does the index support plain (non-bitmap) scans? | 
| 
         bitmap_scan
         | Does the index support bitmap scans? | 
| 
         backward_scan
         | Can the scan direction be changed in mid-scan (to
             support 
         FETCH BACKWARD
        on a cursor without
             needing materialization)? | 
Table 9.77. Index Access Method Properties
| Name | Description | 
|---|---|
| 
         can_order
         | Does the access method support 
         ASC
        ,
         DESC
        and related keywords in
         CREATE INDEX
        ? | 
| 
         can_unique
         | Does the access method support unique indexes? | 
| 
         can_multi_col
         | Does the access method support indexes with multiple columns? | 
| 
         can_exclude
         | Does the access method support exclusion constraints? | 
| 
         can_include
         | Does the access method support the 
         INCLUDE
        clause of
         CREATE INDEX
        ? | 
Table 9.78. GUC Flags
| Flag | Description | 
|---|---|
| 
         EXPLAIN
         | Parameters with this flag are included in 
         EXPLAIN (SETTINGS)
        commands. | 
| 
         NO_SHOW_ALL
         | Parameters with this flag are excluded from 
         SHOW ALL
        commands. | 
| 
         NO_RESET
         | Parameters with this flag do not support 
         RESET
        commands. | 
| 
         NO_RESET_ALL
         | Parameters with this flag are excluded from 
         RESET ALL
        commands. | 
| 
         NOT_IN_SAMPLE
         | Parameters with this flag are not included in 
         postgresql.conf
        by default. | 
| 
         RUNTIME_COMPUTED
         | Parameters with this flag are runtime-computed ones. | 
9.27.5. Object Information and Addressing Functions #
Table 9.79 lists functions related to database object identification and addressing.
Table 9.79. Object Information and Addressing Functions
9.27.6. Comment Information Functions #
The functions shown in Table 9.80 extract comments previously stored with the COMMENT command. A null value is returned if no comment could be found for the specified parameters.
Table 9.80. Comment Information Functions
9.27.7. Data Validity Checking Functions #
The functions shown in Table 9.81 can be helpful for checking validity of proposed input data.
Table 9.81. Data Validity Checking Functions
9.27.8. Transaction ID and Snapshot Information Functions #
The functions shown in Table 9.82 provide server transaction information in an exportable form. The main use of these functions is to determine which transactions were committed between two snapshots.
Table 9.82. Transaction ID and Snapshot Information Functions
| Function Description | 
|---|
| Returns the number of transactions between the supplied transaction id and the current transaction counter. | 
| Returns the number of multixacts IDs between the supplied multixact ID and the current multixacts counter. | 
| Returns the current transaction's ID. It will assign a new one if the current transaction does not have one already (because it has not performed any database updates); see Section 66.1 for details. If executed in a subtransaction, this will return the top-level transaction ID; see Section 66.3 for details. | 
| 
         
         
          
         Returns the current transaction's ID, or
          | 
| 
         
         
          
         Reports the commit status of a recent transaction.
        The result is one of
          | 
| 
         
         
          Returns a current snapshot , a data structure showing which transaction IDs are now in-progress. Only top-level transaction IDs are included in the snapshot; subtransaction IDs are not shown; see Section 66.3 for details. | 
| 
         
         
          Returns the set of in-progress transaction IDs contained in a snapshot. | 
| 
         
         
          
         Returns the
          | 
| 
         
         
          
         Returns the
          | 
| 
         
         
          Is the given transaction ID visible according to this snapshot (that is, was it completed before the snapshot was taken)? Note that this function will not give the correct answer for a subtransaction ID (subxid); see Section 66.3 for details. | 
| 
         
         
          
         Returns the transaction ID and lock mode for each member of the
        specified multixact ID.  The lock modes
          | 
   The internal transaction ID type
   
    xid
   
   is 32 bits wide and
    wraps around every 4 billion transactions.  However,
    the functions shown in
   
    Table 9.82
   
   , except
   
    age
   
   ,
   
    mxid_age
   
   , and
   
    pg_get_multixact_members
   
   , use a
    64-bit type
   
    xid8
   
   that does not wrap around during the life
    of an installation and can be converted to
   
    xid
   
   by casting if
    required;  see
   
    Section 66.1
   
   for details.
    The data type
   
    pg_snapshot
   
   stores information about
    transaction ID visibility at a particular moment in time.  Its components
    are described in
   
    Table 9.83
   
   .
   
    pg_snapshot
   
   's textual representation is
   
    
     
   .
    For example
   
      xmin
     
    
    :
    
     
      xmax
     
    
    :
    
     
      xip_list
     
    
   
    10:20:10,14,15
   
   means
   
    xmin=10, xmax=20, xip_list=10, 14, 15
   
   .
  
Table 9.83. Snapshot Components
| Name | Description | 
|---|---|
| 
         xmin
         | Lowest transaction ID that was still active.  All transaction IDs
         less than 
         xmin
        are either committed and visible,
         or rolled back and dead. | 
| 
         xmax
         | One past the highest completed transaction ID.  All transaction IDs
         greater than or equal to 
         xmax
        had not yet
         completed as of the time of the snapshot, and thus are invisible. | 
| 
         xip_list
         | Transactions in progress at the time of the snapshot.  A transaction
        ID that is 
         xmin <=
         
          and not in this list was already completed at the time
        of the snapshot, and thus is either visible or dead according to its
        commit status.  This list does not include the transaction IDs of
        subtransactions (subxids). | 
   In releases of
   
    PostgreSQL
   
   before 13 there was
    no
   
    xid8
   
   type, so variants of these functions were provided
    that used
   
    bigint
   
   to represent a 64-bit XID, with a
    correspondingly distinct snapshot data type
   
    txid_snapshot
   
   .
    These older functions have
   
    txid
   
   in their names.  They
    are still supported for backward compatibility, but may be removed from a
    future release. See
   
    Table 9.84
   
   .
  
Table 9.84. Deprecated Transaction ID and Snapshot Information Functions
9.27.9. Committed Transaction Information Functions #
The functions shown in Table 9.85 provide information about when past transactions were committed. They only provide useful data when the track_commit_timestamp configuration option is enabled, and only for transactions that were committed after it was enabled. Commit timestamp information is routinely removed during vacuum.
Table 9.85. Committed Transaction Information Functions
9.27.10. Control Data Functions #
   The functions shown in
   
    Table 9.86
   
   print information initialized during
   
    initdb
   
   , such
    as the catalog version. They also show information about write-ahead
    logging and checkpoint processing. This information is cluster-wide,
    not specific to any one database. These functions provide most of the same
    information, from the same source, as the
   
    
     
      pg_controldata
     
    
   
   application.
  
Table 9.86. Control Data Functions
| Function Description | 
|---|
| 
         
         
          Returns information about current checkpoint state, as shown in Table 9.87 . | 
| Returns information about current control file state, as shown in Table 9.88 . | 
| Returns information about cluster initialization state, as shown in Table 9.89 . | 
| 
         
         
          Returns information about recovery state, as shown in Table 9.90 . | 
    
     Table 9.87. 
     
      pg_control_checkpoint
     
     Output Columns
    
   
| Column Name | Data Type | 
|---|---|
| 
         checkpoint_lsn
         | 
         pg_lsn
         | 
| 
         redo_lsn
         | 
         pg_lsn
         | 
| 
         redo_wal_file
         | 
         text
         | 
| 
         timeline_id
         | 
         integer
         | 
| 
         prev_timeline_id
         | 
         integer
         | 
| 
         full_page_writes
         | 
         boolean
         | 
| 
         next_xid
         | 
         text
         | 
| 
         next_oid
         | 
         oid
         | 
| 
         next_multixact_id
         | 
         xid
         | 
| 
         next_multi_offset
         | 
         xid
         | 
| 
         oldest_xid
         | 
         xid
         | 
| 
         oldest_xid_dbid
         | 
         oid
         | 
| 
         oldest_active_xid
         | 
         xid
         | 
| 
         oldest_multi_xid
         | 
         xid
         | 
| 
         oldest_multi_dbid
         | 
         oid
         | 
| 
         oldest_commit_ts_xid
         | 
         xid
         | 
| 
         newest_commit_ts_xid
         | 
         xid
         | 
| 
         checkpoint_time
         | 
         timestamp with time zone
         | 
    
     Table 9.88. 
     
      pg_control_system
     
     Output Columns
    
   
| Column Name | Data Type | 
|---|---|
| 
         pg_control_version
         | 
         integer
         | 
| 
         catalog_version_no
         | 
         integer
         | 
| 
         system_identifier
         | 
         bigint
         | 
| 
         pg_control_last_modified
         | 
         timestamp with time zone
         | 
    
     Table 9.89. 
     
      pg_control_init
     
     Output Columns
    
   
| Column Name | Data Type | 
|---|---|
| 
         max_data_alignment
         | 
         integer
         | 
| 
         database_block_size
         | 
         integer
         | 
| 
         blocks_per_segment
         | 
         integer
         | 
| 
         wal_block_size
         | 
         integer
         | 
| 
         bytes_per_wal_segment
         | 
         integer
         | 
| 
         max_identifier_length
         | 
         integer
         | 
| 
         max_index_columns
         | 
         integer
         | 
| 
         max_toast_chunk_size
         | 
         integer
         | 
| 
         large_object_chunk_size
         | 
         integer
         | 
| 
         float8_pass_by_value
         | 
         boolean
         | 
| 
         data_page_checksum_version
         | 
         integer
         | 
    
     Table 9.90. 
     
      pg_control_recovery
     
     Output Columns
    
   
| Column Name | Data Type | 
|---|---|
| 
         min_recovery_end_lsn
         | 
         pg_lsn
         | 
| 
         min_recovery_end_timeline
         | 
         integer
         | 
| 
         backup_start_lsn
         | 
         pg_lsn
         | 
| 
         backup_end_lsn
         | 
         pg_lsn
         | 
| 
         end_of_backup_record_required
         | 
         boolean
         | 
9.27.11. Version Information Functions #
The functions shown in Table 9.91 print version information.
Table 9.91. Version Information Functions
| Function Description | 
|---|
| 
         Returns a string describing the
         
          PostgreSQL
         
         server's version.  You can also get this information from
         
          server_version
         
         , or for a machine-readable
        version use
         
          server_version_num
         
         .  Software
        developers should use
          | 
| Returns a string representing the version of Unicode used by PostgreSQL . | 
| 
         Returns a string representing the version of Unicode used by ICU, if
        the server was built with ICU support; otherwise returns
          | 
9.27.12. WAL Summarization Information Functions #
The functions shown in Table 9.92 print information about the status of WAL summarization. See summarize_wal .
Table 9.92. WAL Summarization Information Functions