Greg Stark <gsstark@mit.edu> writes:
> One feature that would be handy for doing this would be if Postgres supported
> READ DIRTY. Few databases support it, and Postgres currently doesn't, but it
> would be extremely handy for peeking to see how much progress an update,
> delete, or insert has made.
Would it? My first thought on reading the OP was to recommend
contrib/pgstattuple, but I refrained after thinking that if the table
is all that big, the last thing you need is someone doing a seqscan of
the whole table to see where you are. Much less doing so repeatedly.
regards, tom lane