8.20. pg_lsn
Type
The pg_lsn
data type can be used to store LSN (Log Sequence Number) data which is a pointer to a location in the WAL. This type is a representation of XLogRecPtr
and an internal system type of Postgres Pro.
Internally, an LSN is a 64-bit integer, representing a byte position in the write-ahead log stream. It is printed as two hexadecimal numbers of up to 8 digits each, separated by a slash; for example, 16/B374D848
. The pg_lsn
type supports the standard comparison operators, like =
and >
. Two LSNs can be subtracted using the -
operator; the result is the number of bytes separating those write-ahead log locations. Also the number of bytes can be added into and subtracted from LSN using the +(pg_lsn,numeric)
and -(pg_lsn,numeric)
operators, respectively. Note that the calculated LSN should be in the range of pg_lsn
type, i.e., between 0/0
and FFFFFFFF/FFFFFFFF
.