Answer by Daniel Vérité for What is the search_path for a given database and user?

The permanent settings for both databases and roles are stored in the pg_db_role_settings system cluster-wide table.

Only settings passed to ALTER USER and ALTER DATABASE are present in this table. To get at the values that are configured aside from these commands:

• The value of the setting prior to any change, including at the cluster level (through the global configuration postgresql.conf) can be queried from the database with:

   SELECT boot_val FROM pg_settings WHERE name='search_path';

• The value of the setting prior to any change within the session (through the SET command) can be queried from the database with:

   SELECT reset_val FROM pg_settings WHERE name='search_path';

• When it's set a non-default value in postgresql.conf, it's not straightforward to obtain that value in SQL independently of the current session. pg_settings.boot_val won't do because it ignores changes in the configuration file, and pg_settings.reset_val won't either, because it's influenced by the database/user settings potentially set through ALTER USER/ALTER DATABASE. The simplest way for a DBA to get the value is to just look it up in postgresql.conf. Otherwise, seeReset search_path to the global, cluster default which covers this topic in detail.