meaning of "waiting" column in pg_stat_activity?

Started by Chris Curveyover 13 years ago2 messagesgeneral
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#1Chris Curvey
chris@chriscurvey.com

Just wondering...if a query is "waiting", what is it waiting for? Is
this only for locks, or can it be for disk, or a memory buffer? (If
there is a description of the meaning of things in pg_stat_activity
and it's relatives, I'd love a pointer, 'cause I can't seem to find
it.)

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#2Guillaume Lelarge
guillaume@lelarge.info
In reply to: Chris Curvey (#1)
Re: meaning of "waiting" column in pg_stat_activity?

On Mon, 2012-07-23 at 16:13 -0400, Chris Curvey wrote:

Just wondering...if a query is "waiting", what is it waiting for?

Locks.

Is
this only for locks, or can it be for disk, or a memory buffer?

Only locks.

(If
there is a description of the meaning of things in pg_stat_activity
and it's relatives, I'd love a pointer, 'cause I can't seem to find
it.)

There isn't much at the moment. 9.2 docs will be better in that regard.
See
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.2/static/monitoring-stats.html#PG-STAT-ACTIVITY-VIEW for example (but be careful that some columns of pg_stat_activity change in 9.2).

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