List all sequences in a Postgres db 8.1 with SQL

Question

The following query gives names of all sequences.

SELECT c.relname FROM pg_class c WHERE c.relkind = 'S';

Typically a sequence is named as ${table}_id_seq. Simple regex pattern matching will give you the table name.

To get last value of a sequence use the following query:

SELECT last_value FROM test_id_seq;

Note, that starting from PostgreSQL 8.4 you can get all information about sequences used in the database via:

SELECT * FROM information_schema.sequences;

---

Since I'm using a higher version of PostgreSQL (9.1), and was searching for same answer high and low, I added this answer for posterity's sake and for future searchers.

Launch psql with the -E flag ("echo the actual queries generated by \d and other backslash commands"), then enter the \ds command to list all sequences. You should see something like this:

# \ds
********* QUERY **********
SELECT n.nspname as "Schema",
  c.relname as "Name",
  CASE c.relkind WHEN 'r' THEN 'table' WHEN 'v' THEN 'view' WHEN 'm' THEN 'materialized view' WHEN 'i' THEN 'index' WHEN 'S' THEN 'sequence' WHEN 's' THEN 'special' WHEN 'f' THEN 'foreign table' WHEN 'p' THEN 'partitioned table' WHEN 'I' THEN 'partitioned index' END as "Type",
  pg_catalog.pg_get_userbyid(c.relowner) as "Owner"
FROM pg_catalog.pg_class c
     LEFT JOIN pg_catalog.pg_namespace n ON n.oid = c.relnamespace
WHERE c.relkind IN ('S','')
      AND n.nspname <> 'pg_catalog'
      AND n.nspname <> 'information_schema'
      AND n.nspname !~ '^pg_toast'
  AND pg_catalog.pg_table_is_visible(c.oid)
ORDER BY 1,2;
**************************

                     List of relations
 Schema |              Name              |   Type   | Owner 
--------+--------------------------------+----------+-------
 public | assignments_id_seq             | sequence | root
 public | framework_users_id_seq         | sequence | root
 public | lending_items_id_seq           | sequence | root
 public | proxy_borrower_requests_id_seq | sequence | root
 public | roles_id_seq                   | sequence | root
 public | stack_requests_id_seq          | sequence | root
(6 rows)

To examine a particular sequence, you can then run \d <sequence name>:

# \d lending_items_id_seq
********* QUERY **********

(...about four queries...)

**************************

                    Sequence "public.lending_items_id_seq"
  Type  | Start | Minimum |       Maximum       | Increment | Cycles? | Cache 
--------+-------+---------+---------------------+-----------+---------+-------
 bigint |     1 |       1 | 9223372036854775807 |         1 | no      |     1
Owned by: public.lending_items.id

after a little bit of pain, i got it.

the best way to achieve this is to list all tables

select * from pg_tables where schemaname = '<schema_name>'

and then, for each table, list all columns with attributes

select * from information_schema.columns where table_name = '<table_name>'

then, for each column, test if it has a sequence

select pg_get_serial_sequence('<table_name>', '<column_name>')

and then, get the information about this sequence

select * from <sequence_name>

sequence info : max value

SELECT * FROM information_schema.sequences;

sequence info : last value

SELECT * FROM <sequence_name>

The relationship between automatically generated sequences ( such as those created for SERIAL columns ) and the parent table is modelled by the sequence owner attribute.

You can modify this relationship using the OWNED BY clause of the ALTER SEQUENCE commmand

e.g. ALTER SEQUENCE foo_id OWNED by foo_schema.foo_table

to set it to be linked to the table foo_table

or ALTER SEQUENCE foo_id OWNED by NONE

to break the connection between the sequence and any table

The information about this relationship is stored in the pg_depend catalogue table.

the joining relationship is the link between pg_depend.objid -> pg_class.oid WHERE relkind = 'S' - which links the sequence to the join record and then pg_depend.refobjid -> pg_class.oid WHERE relkind = 'r' , which links the join record to the owning relation ( table )

This query returns all the sequence -> table dependencies in a database. The where clause filters it to only include auto generated relationships, which restricts it to only display sequences created by SERIAL typed columns.

WITH fq_objects AS (SELECT c.oid,n.nspname || '.' ||c.relname AS fqname , 
                           c.relkind, c.relname AS relation 
                    FROM pg_class c JOIN pg_namespace n ON n.oid = c.relnamespace ),

     sequences AS (SELECT oid,fqname FROM fq_objects WHERE relkind = 'S'),  
     tables    AS (SELECT oid, fqname FROM fq_objects WHERE relkind = 'r' )  
SELECT
       s.fqname AS sequence, 
       '->' as depends, 
       t.fqname AS table 
FROM 
     pg_depend d JOIN sequences s ON s.oid = d.objid  
                 JOIN tables t ON t.oid = d.refobjid  
WHERE 
     d.deptype = 'a' ;