Re: [GENERAL] pg_buffercache view

Dear Mr. Bill Moran,

Thank you for your answer.

1) To be more clear I would like to construct a query using the reldatabase
column. In that query you quoted I can't identify the reldatabase column. I
want a query that will help me to list how many buffers are used by each
database

Maybe something like:

SELECT d.datname, count(*) AS buffers

FROM pg_database d, pg_buffercache b

WHERE d.X = b.reldatabase

GROUP BY b.reldatabase

ORDER BY 2 DESC LIMIT 10;

I would like, if possible, to know which is the name of this X which
corresponds to reldatabase column

2) I don't know exactly which is the modality the buffers are used. Is it
possible that all buffers to be used at let's say 5% of their capacity? In
this case I see in pg_buffercache that all the shared memory is used (since
all the buffers are used) but in reality only 5% from it is actually used.

With best regards,

Sorin

-----Original Message-----
From: pgsql-admin-owner(at)postgresql(dot)org
[mailto:pgsql-admin-owner(at)postgresql(dot)org] On Behalf Of Bill Moran
Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2007 4:03 PM
To: Sorin N. Ciolofan
Cc: pgsql-admin(at)postgresql(dot)org; pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: Re: [ADMIN] [GENERAL] pg_buffercache view

In response to "Sorin N. Ciolofan" <ciolofan(at)ics(dot)forth(dot)gr>:

>

> Dear all,

>

> About the pg_buffercache view:

> I couldn't find the description for this view in the manual at

> http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.2/interactive/catalogs.html

> However I found the readme file provided in the /contrib./pg_buffercache
of

> the source code for version 8.2.3

Since pg_buffercache is contributed software, it's not documented in the

official PostgreSQL docs.

> Here it's written the following description:

>

> Column | references | Description

>

>
----------------+----------------------+------------------------------------

> bufferid | | Id, 1..shared_buffers.

> relfilenode | pg_class.relfilenode | Refilenode of the relation.

> reltablespace | pg_tablespace.oid | Tablespace oid of the relation.

> reldatabase | pg_database.oid | Database for the relation.

> relblocknumber | | Offset of the page in the

> relation.

> isdirty | | Is the page dirty?

>

> I've 2 questions:

> 1)

> I was not able to find the field "oid" from pg_database view. Could you

> please tell me what is the actual name of the column for which reldatabase

> is reffering to?

At the end of the README is an example query that I think answers your

question:

SELECT c.relname, count(*) AS buffers

FROM pg_class c, pg_buffercache b

WHERE b.relfilenode = c.relfilenode

GROUP BY c.relname

ORDER BY 2 DESC LIMIT 10;

> 2)

> In readme file is also written:

> "Unused buffers are shown with all fields null except buffered".

> A "used" buffer means that is used 100% or could it be filled only

> partially?

Yes. The buffer is either "used" or "not used", but pg_buffercache doesn't

know what percentage of it is used. >0% is used. 0% is not used.

> Is there any way to know at a certain moment with precision how much
shared

> memory expressed in Mb is used?

The precision is +/- 1 buffer. I expect that trying to get more precision
out

of the system will result in considerable performance degradation as the

data is collected and/or tracked.

--

Bill Moran

http://www.potentialtech.com

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