Re: where is pg_stat_activity (and others) in the documentation?

On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 2:55 PM, <tv(at)fuzzy(dot)cz> wrote:

> What's wrong with these docs?
> http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9/static/catalogs.html
>
It's about different tables and or views

(Tom Lane):
>Or, more to the point, these docs:
>http://developer.postgresql.org/pgdocs/postgres/monitoring-stats.html#MONITORING-STATS-VIEWS<http://developer.postgresql.org/pgdocs/postgres/monitoring-stats.html#MONITORING-STATS-VIEWS>

IMO, it is not a clear and detailed description of what the information in
the views means.

And when it comes to statistics views (pg_stat/pg_statio), don't forget
> most of the columns correspond to a function - just display the view
> definition and search for documentation for each function separately.
>

You'd have to find out which column corresponds to which function, and then
what that function does, to find out what the column means.
That is not my idea of documentation.

It'd be nice to have the documentation for each view too, not for each
> function only, but on the other hand that would be redundancy.
>

Well, of course the documentation is completely redundant in a way, because
the source code is the best documentation.
We have the functions AND the views, so imho it would be good to document
both.
Not everyone is so savvy that they look up what the built in views do
exactly, and then understand.
Generally, (i presume) they are looking to solve a different problem or
question and they look to these views to be informed. They are not
necessarily into source code (or underlying sql source code).

What i think we need is something like this
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9/static/catalogs.html
for the pg_stat* views

Cheers, have a nice day,

WBL

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