System Views
| PostgreSQL 9.4.21 Documentation | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Prev | Up | Chapter 48. System Catalogs | Next |
In addition to the system catalogs, PostgreSQL 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.
The information schema ( Chapter 34 ) 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 PostgreSQL -specific, it's usually better to use the information schema if it provides all the information you need.
Table 48-55 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 Table 27-1 .
Except where noted, all the views described here are read-only.
Table 48-55. System Views
| View Name | Purpose |
|---|---|
| pg_available_extensions | available extensions |
| pg_available_extension_versions | available versions of extensions |
| pg_cursors | open cursors |
| pg_group | groups of database users |
| pg_indexes | indexes |
| pg_locks | currently held locks |
| pg_matviews | materialized views |
| pg_prepared_statements | prepared statements |
| pg_prepared_xacts | prepared transactions |
| pg_roles | database roles |
| pg_rules | rules |
| pg_seclabels | security labels |
| pg_settings | parameter settings |
| pg_shadow | database users |
| pg_stats | planner statistics |
| pg_tables | tables |
| pg_timezone_abbrevs | time zone abbreviations |
| pg_timezone_names | time zone names |
| pg_user | database users |
| pg_user_mappings | user mappings |
| pg_views | views |