pg.ddx.io  pgsql-performance@postgresql.org mailing list archive  
help / color / mirror / Atom feed
From: Joshua D. Drake <jd@commandprompt.com>
To: Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com>
Cc: pgsql-performance@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: Where does data in pg_stat_user_tables come from?
Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2010 17:12:08 -0700
Message-ID: <1284423128.28610.592.camel@jd-desktop.unknown.charter.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <4C8EB813.6070204@agliodbs.com>
References: <4C8EAE5E.70201@agliodbs.com>
	<1284421288.28610.501.camel@jd-desktop.unknown.charter.com>
	<4C8EB813.6070204@agliodbs.com>

On Mon, 2010-09-13 at 16:47 -0700, Josh Berkus wrote:
> On 9/13/10 4:41 PM, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> > On Mon, 2010-09-13 at 16:06 -0700, Josh Berkus wrote:
> >> All,
> >>
> >> I've been looking at pg_stat_user_tables (in 8.3, because of a project I
> >> have), and it appears that autovacuum, and only autovaccum, updates the
> >> data for this view.  This means that one can never have data in
> >> pg_stat_user_tables which is completely up-to-date, and if autovacuum is
> >> off, the view is useless.
> > 
> > As I recall its kept in shared_buffers (in some kind of counter) and
> > updated only when it is requested or when autovacuum fires. This was
> > done because we used to write stats every 500ms and it was a bottleneck.
> > (IIRC)
> 
> Yes, looks like it only gets updated on SELECT or on autovacuum.
> 
> Thing is, a full VACUUM ANALYZE on the database, or even just ANALYZE,
> should update some of the counters.  And currently it doesnt, resulting
> in pg_class.reltuples often being far more up to date than
> pg_stat_user_tables.n_live_tup.  And frankly, no way to reconcile those
> two stats.

If you select from pg_stat_user_tables, the counters should be
reasonably close unless your default_statistics_target is way off and
then pg_class.reltuples would be wrong.

Joshua D. Drake


-- 
PostgreSQL.org Major Contributor
Command Prompt, Inc: http://www.commandprompt.com/ - 509.416.6579
Consulting, Training, Support, Custom Development, Engineering
http://twitter.com/cmdpromptinc | http://identi.ca/commandprompt




view thread (11+ messages)  latest in thread

Message-ID: <1284423128.28610.592.camel@jd-desktop.unknown.charter.com>
Permalink:  ../1284423128.28610.592.camel@jd-desktop.unknown.charter.com/
Also on:    postgresql.org/message-id/1284423128.28610.592.camel@jd-desktop.unknown.charter.com

 · 

reply

Reply instructions:

You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:

* Reply to all the recipients using the --to and --cc options:
  reply via email

  To: pgsql-performance@postgresql.org
  Cc: jd@commandprompt.com, josh@agliodbs.com
  Subject: Re: Where does data in pg_stat_user_tables come from?
  In-Reply-To: <1284423128.28610.592.camel@jd-desktop.unknown.charter.com>

* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
  and reply-to-all from there: mbox

This inbox is served by DDX for PostgreSQL; see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox