pg_stat_activity xact_start and autovacuum - Mailing list pgsql-general

Hello.

I'm using 8.3.0 and I see that autovacuum processes in
pg_stat_activity have xact_start.

As far as I know, since at least 8.2.x the VACUUM does not start a new
transaction.
If that statement is correct, the xact_start column in
pg_stat_activity should be NULL...

Why does it matter?  Monitoring.  It's good to know the age of oldest
running transaction,
and autovacuuming is well, adding noise.

   Regards,
      Dawid