Semantic Conventions for SQL Databases

Status: Experimental

The SQL databases Semantic Conventions describes how common Database Semantic Conventions apply to SQL databases.

The following database systems (defined in the db.system set) are known to use SQL as their primary query language:

• cockroachdb
• db2
• derby
• edb
• firebird
• h2
• hsqldb
• ingres
• interbase
• mariadb
• maxdb
• mssql
• mssqlcompact
• mysql
• oracle
• other_sql
• pervasive
• postgresql
• sqlite
• trino

Many other database systems support SQL and can be accessed via generic database driver such as JDBC or ODBC. Instrumentations applied to generic SQL drivers SHOULD adhere to SQL semantic conventions.

Attributes

Attribute	Type	Description	Examples	Requirement Level	Stability
db.collection.name	string	The name of the SQL table that the operation is acting upon. [1]	users; dbo.products	Conditionally Required [2]
db.namespace	string	The name of the database, fully qualified within the server address and port. [3]	customers; test.users	Conditionally Required If available.
db.operation.name	string	The name of the operation or command being executed. [4]	SELECT; INSERT; UPDATE; DELETE; CREATE; mystoredproc	Conditionally Required [5]
error.type	string	Describes a class of error the operation ended with. [6]	timeout; java.net.UnknownHostException; server_certificate_invalid; 500	Conditionally Required If and only if the operation failed.
server.port	int	Server port number. [7]	80; 8080; 443	Conditionally Required [8]
db.query.text	string	The database query being executed. [9]	SELECT * FROM wuser_table where username = ?; SET mykey "WuValue"	Recommended [10]
server.address	string	Name of the database host. [11]	example.com; 10.1.2.80; /tmp/my.sock	Recommended
db.query.parameter.<key>	string	A query parameter used in db.query.text, with <key> being the parameter name, and the attribute value being a string representation of the parameter value. [12]	someval; 55	Opt-In

[1]: It is RECOMMENDED to capture the value as provided by the application without attempting to do any case normalization. If the collection name is parsed from the query text, it SHOULD be the first collection name found in the query and it SHOULD match the value provided in the query text including any schema and database name prefix. For batch operations, if the individual operations are known to have the same collection name then that collection name SHOULD be used, otherwise db.collection.name SHOULD NOT be captured.

[2]: If readily available. The collection name MAY be parsed from the query text, in which case it SHOULD be the first collection name found in the query.

[3]: If a database system has multiple namespace components, they SHOULD be concatenated (potentially using database system specific conventions) from most general to most specific namespace component, and more specific namespaces SHOULD NOT be captured without the more general namespaces, to ensure that “startswith” queries for the more general namespaces will be valid.

Unless specified by the system-specific semantic convention, the db.namespace attribute matches the name of the database being accessed.

The database name can usually be obtained with database driver API such as JDBC Connection.getCatalog() or .NET SqlConnection.Database.

Some database drivers don’t detect when the current database is changed (for example, with SQL USE database statement). Instrumentations that parse SQL statements MAY use the database name provided in the connection string and keep track of the currently selected database name.

For commands that switch the database, this SHOULD be set to the target database (even if the command fails).

If instrumentation cannot reliably determine the current database name, it SHOULD NOT set db.namespace.

[4]: This SHOULD be the SQL command such as SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, CREATE, DROP. In the case of EXEC, this SHOULD be the stored procedure name that is being executed.

[5]: If readily available. The operation name MAY be parsed from the query text, in which case it SHOULD be the first operation name found in the query.

[6]: The error.type SHOULD match the error code returned by the database or the client library, the canonical name of exception that occurred, or another low-cardinality error identifier. Instrumentations SHOULD document the list of errors they report.

[7]: When observed from the client side, and when communicating through an intermediary, server.port SHOULD represent the server port behind any intermediaries, for example proxies, if it’s available.

[8]: If using a port other than the default port for this DBMS and if server.address is set.

[9]: For sanitization see Sanitization of db.query.text. For batch operations, if the individual operations are known to have the same query text then that query text SHOULD be used, otherwise all of the individual query texts SHOULD be concatenated with separator ; or some other database system specific separator if more applicable. Even though parameterized query text can potentially have sensitive data, by using a parameterized query the user is giving a strong signal that any sensitive data will be passed as parameter values, and the benefit to observability of capturing the static part of the query text by default outweighs the risk.

[10]: SHOULD be collected by default only if there is sanitization that excludes sensitive information. See Sanitization of db.query.text.

[11]: When observed from the client side, and when communicating through an intermediary, server.address SHOULD represent the server address behind any intermediaries, for example proxies, if it’s available.

[12]: Query parameters should only be captured when db.query.text is parameterized with placeholders. If a parameter has no name and instead is referenced only by index, then <key> SHOULD be the 0-based index.

The following attributes can be important for making sampling decisions and SHOULD be provided at span creation time (if provided at all):

• db.collection.name
• db.operation.name
• db.query.text
• server.address
• server.port

error.type has the following list of well-known values. If one of them applies, then the respective value MUST be used; otherwise, a custom value MAY be used.

Value	Description	Stability
_OTHER	A fallback error value to be used when the instrumentation doesn’t define a custom value.

Example

This is an example of attributes for a MySQL database span: