52.35. pg_opfamily
| Up | Chapter 52. System Catalogs | Home |

## 52.35. pg_opfamily #

The catalog pg_opfamily defines operator families. Each operator family is a collection of operators and associated support routines that implement the semantics specified for a particular index access method. Furthermore, the operators in a family are all “compatible”, in a way that is specified by the access method. The operator family concept allows cross-data-type operators to be used with indexes and to be reasoned about using knowledge of access method semantics.

Operator families are described at length in Section 36.16.

Table 52.35. pg_opfamily Columns

Column Type Description
`oid` oid Row identifier
`opfmethod` oid (references pg_am.`oid`) Index access method operator family is for
`opfname` name Name of this operator family
`opfnamespace` oid (references pg_namespace.`oid`) Namespace of this operator family
`opfowner` oid (references pg_authid.`oid`) Owner of the operator family

The majority of the information defining an operator family is not in its pg_opfamily row, but in the associated rows in pg_amop, pg_amproc, and pg_opclass.

| Up |
| Home |