F.29. pg_stat_statements

F.29.1. The pg_stat_statements View

The statistics gathered by the module are made available via a view named pg_stat_statements. This view contains one row for each distinct database ID, user ID and query ID (up to the maximum number of distinct statements that the module can track). The columns of the view are shown in Table F.21.

For security reasons, only superusers and members of the pg_read_all_stats role are allowed to see the SQL text and queryid of queries executed by other users. Other users can see the statistics, however, if the view has been installed in their database.

Plannable queries (that is, SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE) are combined into a single pg_stat_statements entry whenever they have identical query structures according to an internal hash calculation. Typically, two queries will be considered the same for this purpose if they are semantically equivalent except for the values of literal constants appearing in the query. Utility commands (that is, all other commands) are compared strictly on the basis of their textual query strings, however.

When a constant's value has been ignored for purposes of matching the query to other queries, the constant is replaced by a parameter symbol, such as $1, in the pg_stat_statements display. The rest of the query text is that of the first query that had the particular queryid hash value associated with the pg_stat_statements entry.

In some cases, queries with visibly different texts might get merged into a single pg_stat_statements entry. Normally this will happen only for semantically equivalent queries, but there is a small chance of hash collisions causing unrelated queries to be merged into one entry. (This cannot happen for queries belonging to different users or databases, however.)

Since the queryid hash value is computed on the post-parse-analysis representation of the queries, the opposite is also possible: queries with identical texts might appear as separate entries, if they have different meanings as a result of factors such as different search_path settings.

Consumers of pg_stat_statements may wish to use queryid (perhaps in combination with dbid and userid) as a more stable and reliable identifier for each entry than its query text. However, it is important to understand that there are only limited guarantees around the stability of the queryid hash value. Since the identifier is derived from the post-parse-analysis tree, its value is a function of, among other things, the internal object identifiers appearing in this representation. This has some counterintuitive implications. For example, pg_stat_statements will consider two apparently-identical queries to be distinct, if they reference a table that was dropped and recreated between the executions of the two queries. The hashing process is also sensitive to differences in machine architecture and other facets of the platform. Furthermore, it is not safe to assume that queryid will be stable across major versions of PostgreSQL.

As a rule of thumb, queryid values can be assumed to be stable and comparable only so long as the underlying server version and catalog metadata details stay exactly the same. Two servers participating in replication based on physical WAL replay can be expected to have identical queryid values for the same query. However, logical replication schemes do not promise to keep replicas identical in all relevant details, so queryid will not be a useful identifier for accumulating costs across a set of logical replicas. If in doubt, direct testing is recommended.

The parameter symbols used to replace constants in representative query texts start from the next number after the highest $n parameter in the original query text, or $1 if there was none. It's worth noting that in some cases there may be hidden parameter symbols that affect this numbering. For example, PL/pgSQL uses hidden parameter symbols to insert values of function local variables into queries, so that a PL/pgSQL statement like SELECT i + 1 INTO j would have representative text like SELECT i + $2.

The representative query texts are kept in an external disk file, and do not consume shared memory. Therefore, even very lengthy query texts can be stored successfully. However, if many long query texts are accumulated, the external file might grow unmanageably large. As a recovery method if that happens, pg_stat_statements may choose to discard the query texts, whereupon all existing entries in the pg_stat_statements view will show null query fields, though the statistics associated with each queryid are preserved. If this happens, consider reducing pg_stat_statements.max to prevent recurrences.

F.29.2. Functions

F.29.3. Configuration Parameters

The module requires additional shared memory proportional to pg_stat_statements.max. Note that this memory is consumed whenever the module is loaded, even if pg_stat_statements.track is set to none.

These parameters must be set in postgresql.conf. Typical usage might be:

# postgresql.conf
shared_preload_libraries = 'pg_stat_statements'

pg_stat_statements.max = 10000
pg_stat_statements.track = all

F.29.4. Sample Output

bench=# SELECT pg_stat_statements_reset();

$ pgbench -i bench
$ pgbench -c10 -t300 bench

bench=# \x
bench=# SELECT query, calls, total_time, rows, 100.0 * shared_blks_hit /
               nullif(shared_blks_hit + shared_blks_read, 0) AS hit_percent
          FROM pg_stat_statements ORDER BY total_time DESC LIMIT 5;
-[ RECORD 1 ]---------------------------------------------------------------------
query       | UPDATE pgbench_branches SET bbalance = bbalance + $1 WHERE bid = $2;
calls       | 3000
total_time  | 9609.00100000002
rows        | 2836
hit_percent | 99.9778970000200936
-[ RECORD 2 ]---------------------------------------------------------------------
query       | UPDATE pgbench_tellers SET tbalance = tbalance + $1 WHERE tid = $2;
calls       | 3000
total_time  | 8015.156
rows        | 2990
hit_percent | 99.9731126579631345
-[ RECORD 3 ]---------------------------------------------------------------------
query       | copy pgbench_accounts from stdin
calls       | 1
total_time  | 310.624
rows        | 100000
hit_percent | 0.30395136778115501520
-[ RECORD 4 ]---------------------------------------------------------------------
query       | UPDATE pgbench_accounts SET abalance = abalance + $1 WHERE aid = $2;
calls       | 3000
total_time  | 271.741999999997
rows        | 3000
hit_percent | 93.7968855088209426
-[ RECORD 5 ]---------------------------------------------------------------------
query       | alter table pgbench_accounts add primary key (aid)
calls       | 1
total_time  | 81.42
rows        | 0
hit_percent | 34.4947735191637631

F.29.5. Authors

Takahiro Itagaki <[email protected]>. Query normalization added by Peter Geoghegan <[email protected]>.