Online Documentation for SQL Manager for PostgreSQL

Viewing query plan

Using SQL Manager for PostgreSQL, you can view the plan for each of the queries created and executed in the application. The query plan is available within the corresponding Plan tab.

To view the Plan of a query, open the query in Query Data and use the Explain query item of the Navigation bar or toolbar.

The Plan tab allows you to view the sequence of actions performed by the database server in the process of the query execution, and the amount of system resources used for the query execution.

The Operation panel below displays the operations as a tree list with the following columns: Operation Info, Operation, Start-up Cost, Total Cost, Number of Rows, Row Width, Startup Time, Total Time, Real Number of Rows, Loops.

Right-click within the panel to display the context menu allowing you to configure the set of visible columns or export the plan to any of supported formats.

If necessary, you can specify that the Plan tab appears automatically upon query execution in Query Data: select the Explain query on execution option available within the Tools | Query Data section of the Environment Options dialog.

You can also view the execution plan as text at the bottom of the current tab: select the Verbose option available in the Explain query menu on the toolbar of Query Data.

The menu also allows you to enable the Analyze option to make the query execution plan more detailed (with execution time included).