Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> writes:
> On Thu, Mar 9, 2017 at 2:30 PM, Peter Eisentraut
> <peter.eisentraut@2ndquadrant.com> wrote:
>> In practice, I think it's common to do a quick select * from
>> pg_stat_activity to determine whether a database instance is in use.
> I thought of the same kind of thing, and it was discussed upthread.
> There seemed to be more votes for keeping it all in one view, but that
> could change if more people vote.
I've not been paying much attention to this thread, but it seems like
something that would help Peter's use-case and have other uses as well
is a new column that distinguishes different process types --- user
session, background worker, autovacuum worker, etc.
regards, tom lane