Re: where is pg_stat_activity (and others) in the documentation? - Mailing list pgsql-general

From Willy-Bas Loos
Subject Re: where is pg_stat_activity (and others) in the documentation?
Date
Msg-id AANLkTimJPmnPKg9zt+LQ0t+SCG_fPpQzK+gsxbpSU=Hv@mail.gmail.com
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: where is pg_stat_activity (and others) in the documentation?  (tv@fuzzy.cz)
List pgsql-general


On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 2:55 PM, <tv@fuzzy.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

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

--
"Patriotism is the conviction that your country is superior to all others because you were born in it." -- George Bernard Shaw

pgsql-general by date:

Previous
From: Robert Gravsjö
Date:
Subject: Re: upgrade from postgres 8.x to 9.x problem
Next
From: Tom Lane
Date:
Subject: Re: Whose bug is this?