F.28.1. Overview

pgrowlocks(text) returns setof record

The parameter is the name of a table. The result is a set of records, with one row for each locked row within the table. The output columns are shown in Table F-21.

pgrowlocks takes AccessShareLock for the target table and reads each row one by one to collect the row locking information. This is not very speedy for a large table. Note that:

1. If the table as a whole is exclusive-locked by someone else, pgrowlocks will be blocked.

2. pgrowlocks is not guaranteed to produce a self-consistent snapshot. It is possible that a new row lock is taken, or an old lock is freed, during its execution.

pgrowlocks does not show the contents of locked rows. If you want to take a look at the row contents at the same time, you could do something like this:

SELECT * FROM accounts AS a, pgrowlocks('accounts') AS p
  WHERE p.locked_row = a.ctid;

Be aware however that such a query will be very inefficient.

F.28.2. Sample Output

=# SELECT * FROM pgrowlocks('t1');
 locked_row | locker | multi | xids  |     modes      |  pids
------------+--------+-------+-------+----------------+--------
 (0,1)      |    609 | f     | {609} | {"For Share"}  | {3161}
 (0,2)      |    609 | f     | {609} | {"For Share"}  | {3161}
 (0,3)      |    607 | f     | {607} | {"For Update"} | {3107}
 (0,4)      |    607 | f     | {607} | {"For Update"} | {3107}
(4 rows)

F.28.3. Author

Tatsuo Ishii