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4.13 Preset Options

The following “parameters” are read-only, and are determined when PostgreSQL is compiled or when it is installed. As such, they have been excluded from the sample ‘postgresql.conf’ file. These options report various aspects of PostgreSQL behavior that might be of interest to certain applications, particularly administrative front-ends.

block_size (integer)

Reports the size of a disk block. It is determined by the value of BLCKSZ when building the server. The default value is 8192 bytes. The meaning of some configuration variables (such as shared_buffers) is influenced by block_size. See section 4.4 Resource Consumption for information.

integer_datetimes (boolean)

Reports whether PostgreSQL was built with support for 64-bit-integer dates and times. This can be disabled by configuring with --disable-integer-datetimes when building PostgreSQL. The default value is on.

lc_collate (string)

Reports the locale in which sorting of textual data is done. See section 8.1 Locale Support for more information. This value is determined when a database is created.

lc_ctype (string)

Reports the locale that determines character classifications. See section 8.1 Locale Support for more information. This value is determined when a database is created. Ordinarily this will be the same as lc_collate, but for special applications it might be set differently.

max_function_args (integer)

Reports the maximum number of function arguments. It is determined by the value of FUNC_MAX_ARGS when building the server. The default value is 100 arguments.

max_identifier_length (integer)

Reports the maximum identifier length. It is determined as one less than the value of NAMEDATALEN when building the server. The default value of NAMEDATALEN is 64; therefore the default max_identifier_length is 63 bytes, which can be less than 63 characters when using multibyte encodings.

max_index_keys (integer)

Reports the maximum number of index keys. It is determined by the value of INDEX_MAX_KEYS when building the server. The default value is 32 keys.

segment_size (integer)

Reports the number of blocks (pages) that can be stored within a file segment. It is determined by the value of RELSEG_SIZE when building the server. The maximum size of a segment file in bytes is equal to segment_size multiplied by block_size; by default this is 1GB.

server_encoding (string)

Reports the database encoding (character set). It is determined when the database is created. Ordinarily, clients need only be concerned with the value of client_encoding.

server_version (string)

Reports the version number of the server. It is determined by the value of PG_VERSION when building the server.

server_version_num (integer)

Reports the version number of the server as an integer. It is determined by the value of PG_VERSION_NUM when building the server.

wal_block_size (integer)

Reports the size of a WAL disk block. It is determined by the value of XLOG_BLCKSZ when building the server. The default value is 8192 bytes.

wal_segment_size (integer)

Reports the number of blocks (pages) in a WAL segment file. The total size of a WAL segment file in bytes is equal to wal_segment_size multiplied by wal_block_size; by default this is 16MB. See section 15.4 WAL Configuration for more information.