On 2017-03-09 16:37:29 -0500, Tom Lane wrote:
> Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> writes:
> > On Thu, Mar 9, 2017 at 2:30 PM, Peter Eisentraut
> > <peter.eisentraut@2ndquadrant.com> wrote:
> >> In practice, I think it's common to do a quick select * from
> >> pg_stat_activity to determine whether a database instance is in use.
>
> > I thought of the same kind of thing, and it was discussed upthread.
> > There seemed to be more votes for keeping it all in one view, but that
> > could change if more people vote.
>
> I've not been paying much attention to this thread, but it seems like
> something that would help Peter's use-case and have other uses as well
> is a new column that distinguishes different process types --- user
> session, background worker, autovacuum worker, etc.
The patches upthread add precisely such a column.
Andres