pg_stat_activity is system view that shows what is currently happening in the DB.
With newer pgs it's rather wide (22 columns as I write this). And, it's not always obvious what all this means. So let's try to figure it out.
Tag: pg_stat_activity
What’s happening in my database?
Lately at least two people on irc asked questions similar to “how do I know how many queries there are in database, per second?“.
So, let's see what we can find out.
Waiting for 9.2 – split of current_query in pg_stat_activity
On 19t of January, Magnus Hagander committed patch:
Separate state from query string in pg_stat_activity
This separates the state (running/idle/idleintransaction etc) into
it's own field ("state"), and leaves the query field containing just
query text.
The query text will now mean "current query" when a query is running
and "last query" in other states. Accordingly,the field has been
renamed from current_query to query.
Since backwards compatibility was broken anyway to make that, the procpid
field has also been renamed to pid - along with the same field in
pg_stat_replication for consistency.
Scott Mead and Magnus Hagander, review work from Greg SmithContinue reading Waiting for 9.2 – split of current_query in pg_stat_activity
Logging queries – how?
One of the questions that pop up frequently on IRC is how to see queries are now executed on the server, and what queries were earlier.
Theoretically answer to this is simple – pg_stat_activity and log_min_duration_statement. Or log_statement. What is the difference? That's exactly why I'm writing this post.