51.3. pg_am

The catalog pg_am stores information about relation access methods. There is one row for each access method supported by the system. Currently, only indexes have access methods. The requirements for index access methods are discussed in detail in Chapter 60.

Table 51.3. pg_am Columns

Name	Type	References	Description
oid	oid		Row identifier (hidden attribute; must be explicitly selected)
amname	name		Name of the access method
amhandler	regproc	pg_proc.oid	OID of a handler function that is responsible for supplying information about the access method
amtype	char		Currently always i to indicate an index access method; other values may be allowed in future

Note

Before PostgreSQL 9.6, pg_am contained many additional columns representing properties of index access methods. That data is now only directly visible at the C code level. However,pg_index_column_has_property() and related functions have been added to allow SQL queries to inspect index access method properties; see Table 9.63.