Wiki / Storage Structures

Each table and index is stored in a separate file. For ordinary relations, these files are named after the table or index's filenode number, which can be found in pg_class . relfilenode . But for temporary relations, the file name is of the form t BBB _ FFF , where BBB is the process number of the backend which created the file, and FFF is the filenode number. In either case, in addition to the main file (a/k/a main fork), each table and index has a free space map (see Section 66.3 ), which stores information about free space available in the relation. The free space map is stored in a file named with the filenode number plus the suffix _fsm . Tables also have a visibility map , stored in a fork with the suffix _vm , to track which pages are known to have no dead tuples. The visibility map is described further in Section 66.4 . Unlogged tables and indexes have a third fork, known as the initialization fork, which is stored in a fork with the suffix _init (see Section 66.5 ). The pg_relation_filepath() function shows the entire path (relative to PGDATA ) of any relation. It is often useful as a substitute for remembering many of the above rules. But keep in mind that this function just gives the name of the first segment of the main fork of the relation — you may need to append a segment number and/or _fsm , _vm , or _init to find all the files associated with the relation.

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