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F.30. pgstattuple

The pgstattuple module provides various functions to obtain tuple-level statistics.

F.30.1. Functions

pgstattuple(regclass) returns record

pgstattuple returns a relation's physical length, percentage of "dead" tuples, and other info. This may help users to determine whether vacuum is necessary or not. The argument is the target relation's name (optionally schema-qualified) or OID. For example:

test=> SELECT * FROM pgstattuple('pg_catalog.pg_proc');
-[ RECORD 1 ]------+-------
table_len          | 458752
tuple_count        | 1470
tuple_len          | 438896
tuple_percent      | 95.67
dead_tuple_count   | 11
dead_tuple_len     | 3157
dead_tuple_percent | 0.69
free_space         | 8932
free_percent       | 1.95

The output columns are described in Table F-23.

Table F-23. pgstattuple Output Columns

Column Type Description
table_len bigint Physical relation length in bytes
tuple_count bigint Number of live tuples
tuple_len bigint Total length of live tuples in bytes
tuple_percent float8 Percentage of live tuples
dead_tuple_count bigint Number of dead tuples
dead_tuple_len bigint Total length of dead tuples in bytes
dead_tuple_percent float8 Percentage of dead tuples
free_space bigint Total free space in bytes
free_percent float8 Percentage of free space

Note: The table_len will always be greater than the sum of the tuple_len, dead_tuple_len and free_space. The difference is accounted for by fixed page overhead, the per-page table of pointers to tuples, and padding to ensure that tuples are correctly aligned.

pgstattuple acquires only a read lock on the relation. So the results do not reflect an instantaneous snapshot; concurrent updates will affect them.

pgstattuple judges a tuple is "dead" if HeapTupleSatisfiesDirty returns false.

pgstattuple(text) returns record

This is the same as pgstattuple(regclass), except that the target relation is specified as TEXT. This function is kept because of backward-compatibility so far, and will be deprecated in some future release.

pgstatindex(regclass) returns record

pgstatindex returns a record showing information about a B-tree index. For example:

test=> SELECT * FROM pgstatindex('pg_cast_oid_index');
-[ RECORD 1 ]------+------
version            | 2
tree_level         | 0
index_size         | 16384
root_block_no      | 1
internal_pages     | 0
leaf_pages         | 1
empty_pages        | 0
deleted_pages      | 0
avg_leaf_density   | 54.27
leaf_fragmentation | 0

The output columns are:

Column Type Description
version integer B-tree version number
tree_level integer Tree level of the root page
index_size bigint Total index size in bytes
root_block_no bigint Location of root page (zero if none)
internal_pages bigint Number of "internal" (upper-level) pages
leaf_pages bigint Number of leaf pages
empty_pages bigint Number of empty pages
deleted_pages bigint Number of deleted pages
avg_leaf_density float8 Average density of leaf pages
leaf_fragmentation float8 Leaf page fragmentation

The reported index_size will normally correspond to one more page than is accounted for by internal_pages + leaf_pages + empty_pages + deleted_pages, because it also includes the index's metapage.

As with pgstattuple, the results are accumulated page-by-page, and should not be expected to represent an instantaneous snapshot of the whole index.

pgstatindex(text) returns record

This is the same as pgstatindex(regclass), except that the target index is specified as TEXT. This function is kept because of backward-compatibility so far, and will be deprecated in some future release.

pgstatginindex(regclass) returns record

pgstatginindex returns a record showing information about a GIN index. For example:

test=> SELECT * FROM pgstatginindex('test_gin_index');
-[ RECORD 1 ]--+--
version        | 1
pending_pages  | 0
pending_tuples | 0

The output columns are:

Column Type Description
version integer GIN version number
pending_pages integer Number of pages in the pending list
pending_tuples bigint Number of tuples in the pending list
pg_relpages(regclass) returns bigint

pg_relpages returns the number of pages in the relation.

pg_relpages(text) returns bigint

This is the same as pg_relpages(regclass), except that the target relation is specified as TEXT. This function is kept because of backward-compatibility so far, and will be deprecated in some future release.

pgstattuple_approx(regclass) returns record

pgstattuple_approx is a faster alternative to pgstattuple that returns approximate results. The argument is the target relation's name or OID. For example:

test=> SELECT * FROM pgstattuple_approx('pg_catalog.pg_proc'::regclass);
-[ RECORD 1 ]--------+-------
table_len            | 573440
scanned_percent      | 2
approx_tuple_count   | 2740
approx_tuple_len     | 561210
approx_tuple_percent | 97.87
dead_tuple_count     | 0
dead_tuple_len       | 0
dead_tuple_percent   | 0
approx_free_space    | 11996
approx_free_percent  | 2.09

The output columns are described in Table F-24.

Whereas pgstattuple always performs a full-table scan and returns an exact count of live and dead tuples (and their sizes) and free space, pgstattuple_approx tries to avoid the full-table scan and returns exact dead tuple statistics along with an approximation of the number and size of live tuples and free space.

It does this by skipping pages that have only visible tuples according to the visibility map (if a page has the corresponding VM bit set, then it is assumed to contain no dead tuples). For such pages, it derives the free space value from the free space map, and assumes that the rest of the space on the page is taken up by live tuples.

For pages that cannot be skipped, it scans each tuple, recording its presence and size in the appropriate counters, and adding up the free space on the page. At the end, it estimates the total number of live tuples based on the number of pages and tuples scanned (in the same way that VACUUM estimates pg_class.reltuples).

Table F-24. pgstattuple_approx Output Columns

Column Type Description
table_len bigint Physical relation length in bytes (exact)
scanned_percent float8 Percentage of table scanned
approx_tuple_count bigint Number of live tuples (estimated)
approx_tuple_len bigint Total length of live tuples in bytes (estimated)
approx_tuple_percent float8 Percentage of live tuples
dead_tuple_count bigint Number of dead tuples (exact)
dead_tuple_len bigint Total length of dead tuples in bytes (exact)
dead_tuple_percent float8 Percentage of dead tuples
approx_free_space bigint Total free space in bytes (estimated)
approx_free_percent float8 Percentage of free space

In the above output, the free space figures may not match the pgstattuple output exactly, because the free space map gives us an exact figure, but is not guaranteed to be accurate to the byte.

F.30.2. Authors

Tatsuo Ishii, Satoshi Nagayasu and Abhijit Menon-Sen