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.

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.

Name	Type	References	Description
oid	oid		Row identifier (hidden attribute; must be explicitly selected)
opfmethod	oid	pg_am.oid	Index access method operator for this family
opfname	name		Name of this operator family
opfnamespace	oid	pg_namespace.oid	Namespace of this operator family
opfowner	oid	pg_authid.oid	Owner of the operator family

Parent topic: System Catalogs Definitions