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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 32 ) 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 43-35 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 25-1 .
Except where noted, all the views described here are read-only.
Table 43-35. System Views
| View Name | Purpose |
|---|---|
| pg_cursors | open cursors |
| pg_group | groups of database users |
| pg_indexes | indexes |
| pg_locks | currently held locks |
| pg_prepared_statements | prepared statements |
| pg_prepared_xacts | prepared transactions |
| pg_roles | database roles |
| pg_rules | rules |
| 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_views | views |