</para>
<para>
- <function>pg_relation_size</> accepts the OID or name of a table, index or
- toast table, and returns the on-disk size in bytes. Specifying
- <literal>'main'</literal> or leaving out the second argument returns the
- size of the main data fork of the relation. Specifying
- <literal>'fsm'</literal> returns the size of the
- Free Space Map (see <xref linkend="storage-fsm">) associated with the
- relation. Specifying <literal>'vm'</literal> returns the size of the
- Visibility Map (see <xref linkend="storage-vm">) associated with the
- relation. Note that this function shows the size of only one fork;
- for most purposes it is more convenient to use the higher-level
- functions <function>pg_total_relation_size</> or
- <function>pg_table_size</>.
+ <function>pg_relation_size</> accepts the OID or name of a table, index
+ or toast table, and returns the on-disk size in bytes of one fork of
+ that relation. (Note that for most purposes it is more convenient to
+ use the higher-level functions <function>pg_total_relation_size</>
+ or <function>pg_table_size</>, which sum the sizes of all forks.)
+ With one argument, it returns the size of the main data fork of the
+ relation. The second argument can be provided to specify which fork
+ to examine:
+ <itemizedlist spacing="compact">
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ <literal>'main'</literal> returns the size of the main
+ data fork of the relation.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ <literal>'fsm'</literal> returns the size of the Free Space Map
+ (see <xref linkend="storage-fsm">) associated with the relation.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ <literal>'vm'</literal> returns the size of the Visibility Map
+ (see <xref linkend="storage-vm">) associated with the relation.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </itemizedlist>
</para>
<para>