Semantic Conventions for SQL Databases

Status: Release Candidate

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 database associated with the connection, fully qualified within the server address and port. [3]	customers; test.users	Conditionally Required If available without an additional network call.
db.operation.name	string	The name of the operation or command being executed. [4]	SELECT; INSERT; UPDATE; DELETE; CREATE; mystoredproc	Conditionally Required [5]
db.response.status_code	string	Database response code recorded as string. [6]	ORA-17027; 1052; 2201B	Conditionally Required If response has ended with warning or an error.
error.type	string	Describes a class of error the operation ended with. [7]	timeout; java.net.UnknownHostException; server_certificate_invalid; 500	Conditionally Required If and only if the operation failed.
server.port	int	Server port number. [8]	80; 8080; 443	Conditionally Required [9]
db.operation.batch.size	int	The number of queries included in a batch operation. [10]	2; 3; 4	Recommended
db.query.text	string	The database query being executed. [11]	SELECT * FROM wuser_table where username = ?; SET mykey "WuValue"	Recommended [12]
server.address	string	Name of the database host. [13]	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. [14]	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. This attribute has stability level RELEASE CANDIDATE.

[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 (e.g. schema name and database name), 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.

A connection’s currently associated database may change during its lifetime, e.g. from executing USE <database>.

If instrumentation is unable to capture the connection’s currently associated database on each query without triggering an additional query to be executed (e.g. SELECT DATABASE()), then it is RECOMMENDED to fallback and use the database provided when the connection was established.

Instrumentation SHOULD document if db.namespace reflects the database provided when the connection was established.

It is RECOMMENDED to capture the value as provided by the application without attempting to do any case normalization.

[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]: SQL defines SQLSTATE as a database return code which is adopted by some database systems like PostgreSQL. See PostgreSQL error codes for the details.

Other systems like MySQL, Oracle, or MS SQL Server define vendor-specific error codes. Database SQL drivers usually provide access to both properties. For example, in Java, the SQLException class reports them with getSQLState() and getErrorCode() methods.

Instrumentations SHOULD populate the db.response.status_code with the the most specific code available to them.

Here’s a non-exhaustive list of databases that report vendor-specific codes with granularity higher than SQLSTATE (or don’t report SQLSTATE at all):

• DB2 SQL codes.
• Maria DB error codes
• Microsoft SQL Server errors
• MySQL error codes
• Oracle error codes
• SQLite result codes

These systems SHOULD set the db.response.status_code to a known vendor-specific error code. If only SQLSTATE is available, it SHOULD be used.

When multiple error codes are available and specificity is unclear, instrumentation SHOULD set the db.response.status_code to the concatenated string of all codes with ‘/’ used as a separator.

For example, generic DB instrumentation that detected an error and has SQLSTATE "42000" and vendor-specific 1071 should set db.response.status_code to "42000/1071"."

[7]: The error.type SHOULD match the db.response.status_code returned by the database or the client library, or the canonical name of exception that occurred. When using canonical exception type name, instrumentation SHOULD do the best effort to report the most relevant type. For example, if the original exception is wrapped into a generic one, the original exception SHOULD be preferred. Instrumentations SHOULD document how error.type is populated.

[8]: 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.

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

[10]: Operations are only considered batches when they contain two or more operations, and so db.operation.batch.size SHOULD never be 1.

[11]: 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. This attribute has stability level RELEASE CANDIDATE.

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

[13]: 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.

[14]: 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. This attribute has stability level RELEASE CANDIDATE.

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: