Inspecting GIST Index Internal Structure with PostgreSQL pageinspect Plugin (PG14)
This article demonstrates how PostgreSQL 14's pageinspect extension adds functions to examine GIST index internal pages, provides step‑by‑step SQL examples for creating a test table and index, and shows how to query opaque page info and item data using the new functions.
The pageinspect extension can be used to examine the internal structure of tables and indexes, but not all index types are supported; PostgreSQL 14 adds three functions to support GIST indexes.
Functions added: gist_page_items(bytea, regclass), gist_page_items_bytea(bytea), and gist_page_opaque_info(bytea).
Example: create a test table with point data and a GIST index, then use the new functions to retrieve opaque page information and page items for different pages.
SQL to create table and index:
CREATE TABLE test_gist AS SELECT point(i,i) p, i::text t FROM generate_series(1,1000) i;
CREATE INDEX test_gist_idx ON test_gist USING gist (p);Queries using gist_page_opaque_info and gist_page_items display page metadata such as lsn, nsn, rightlink, flags, and the stored point values, with sample output shown for pages 0, 1, and 2.
Additional queries with gist_page_items_bytea return raw bytea representations of the index entries, illustrating how each point is encoded.
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