PG_SHDEPEND records the dependency relationships between database objects and shared objects, such as roles. This information allows GaussDB(DWS) to ensure that those objects are unreferenced before attempting to delete them.

See also PG_DEPEND, which performs a similar function for dependencies involving objects within a single database.

Unlike most system catalogs, PG_SHDEPEND is shared across all databases of a cluster: there is only one copy of PG_SHDEPEND per cluster, not one per database.

**Table 1** PG_SHDEPEND columns
Name	Type	Reference	Description
dbid	oid	PG_DATABASE.oid	OID of the database the dependent object is in. The value is 0 for a shared object.
classid	oid	PG_CLASS.oid	OID of the system catalog the dependent object is in.
objid	oid	Any OID column	OID of the specific dependent object
objsubid	integer	-	For a table column, this is the column number (the objid and classid refer to the table itself). For all other object types, this column is 0.
refclassid	oid	PG_CLASS.oid	OID of the system catalog the referenced object is in (must be a shared catalog)
refobjid	oid	Any OID column	OID of the specific referenced object
deptype	"char"	-	Code segment defining the specific semantics of this dependency relationship. See the following text for details.
objfile	text	-	Path of the user-defined C function library file.

In all cases, a pg_shdepend entry indicates that the referenced object cannot be dropped without also dropping the dependent object. However, there are several subflavors defined by deptype:

SHARED_DEPENDENCY_OWNER (o)
The referenced object (which must be a role) is the owner of the dependent object.
SHARED_DEPENDENCY_ACL (a)
The referenced object (which must be a role) is mentioned in the ACL (access control list, i.e., privileges list) of the dependent object. (A SHARED_DEPENDENCY_ACL entry is not made for the owner of the object, since the owner will have a SHARED_DEPENDENCY_OWNER entry anyway.)
SHARED_DEPENDENCY_PIN (p)
There is no dependent object. This type of entry is a signal that the system itself depends on the referenced object, and so that object must never be deleted. Entries of this type are created only by initdb. The columns for the dependent object contain zeroes.