Miscellaneous Functions

PostgreSQL 7.2 Documentation
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# 4.13. Miscellaneous Functions

Table 4-25. Session Information Functions

Name | Return Type | Description
--- | --- | ---
`current_user` | `name` | user name of current execution context
`session_user` | `name` | session user name
`user` | `name` | equivalent to `current_user`

The `session_user` is the user that initiated a database connection; it is fixed for the duration of that connection. The `current_user` is the user identifier that is applicable for permission checking. Currently it is always equal to the session user, but in the future there might be "setuid" functions and other facilities to allow the current user to change temporarily. In Unix parlance, the session user is the "real user" and the current user is the "effective user".

Note that these functions have special syntactic status in SQL: they must be called without trailing parentheses.

> Deprecated: The function `getpgusername()` is an obsolete equivalent of `current_user`.

Table 4-26. System Information Functions

Name | Return Type | Description
--- | --- | ---
`version` | `text` | PostgreSQL version information

`version()` returns a string describing the PostgreSQL server's version.

Table 4-27. Access Privilege Inquiry Functions

Name | Return Type | Description
--- | --- | ---
`has_table_privilege`(`user`, `table`, `access`) | `boolean` | does user have access to table
`has_table_privilege`(`table`, `access`) | `boolean` | does current user have access to table

`has_table_privilege` determines whether a user can access a table in a particular way. The user can be specified by name or by ID (`pg_user`.`usesysid`), or if the argument is omitted `current_user` is assumed. The table can be specified by name or by OID. (Thus, there are actually six variants of `has_table_privilege`, which can be distinguished by the number and types of their arguments.) The desired access type is specified by a text string, which must evaluate to one of the values `SELECT`, `INSERT`, `UPDATE`, `DELETE`, `RULE`, `REFERENCES`, or `TRIGGER`. (Case of the string is not significant, however.)

Table 4-28. Catalog Information Functions

Name | Return Type | Description
--- | --- | ---
`pg_get_viewdef`(`viewname`) | `text` | Get CREATE VIEW command for view
`pg_get_ruledef`(`rulename`) | `text` | Get CREATE RULE command for rule
`pg_get_indexdef`(`indexOID`) | `text` | Get CREATE INDEX command for index
`pg_get_userbyid`(`userid`) | `name` | Get user name given ID

These functions extract information from the system catalogs. `pg_get_viewdef()`, `pg_get_ruledef()`, and `pg_get_indexdef()` respectively reconstruct the creating command for a view, rule, or index. (Note that this is a decompiled reconstruction, not the verbatim text of the command.) `pg_get_userbyid()` extracts a user's name given a `usesysid` value.

Table 4-29. Comment Information Functions

Name | Return Type | Description
--- | --- | ---
`obj_description`(`objectOID`, `tablename`) | `text` | Get comment for a database object
`obj_description`(`objectOID`) | `text` | Get comment for a database object (deprecated)
`col_description`(`tableOID`, `columnnumber`) | `text` | Get comment for a table column

These functions extract comments previously stored with the COMMENT command. `NULL` is returned if no comment can be found matching the specified parameters.

The two-parameter form of `obj_description()` returns the comment for a database object specified by its OID and the name of the containing system catalog. For example, `obj_description(123456,'pg_class')` would retrieve the comment for a table with OID 123456. The one-parameter form of `obj_description()` requires only the object OID. It is now deprecated since there is no guarantee that OIDs are unique across different system catalogs; therefore, the wrong comment could be returned.

`col_description()` returns the comment for a table column, which is specified by the OID of its table and its column number. `obj_description()` cannot be used for table columns since columns do not have OIDs of their own.

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