Semantic Conventions for SQL Databases

Status: Experimental

The SQL databases Semantic Conventions extend and override the Database Semantic Conventions that describe common database operations attributes in addition to the Semantic Conventions described on this page.

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.	SELECT * FROM wuser_table where username = ?; SET mykey "WuValue"	Recommended [9]
server.address	string	Name of the database host. [10]	example.com; 10.1.2.80; /tmp/my.sock	Recommended
db.query.parameter.<key>	string	The query parameters used in db.query.text, with <key> being the parameter name, and the attribute value being the parameter value. [11]	someval; 55	Opt-In

[1]: If the collection name is parsed from the query, it SHOULD match the value provided in the query and may be qualified with the schema and database name. It is RECOMMENDED to capture the value as provided by the application without attempting to do any case normalization.

[2]: If readily available. Otherwise, if the instrumentation library parses db.query.text to capture db.collection.name, then 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. Otherwise, if the instrumentation library parses db.query.text to capture db.operation.name, then 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]: SHOULD be collected by default only if there is sanitization that excludes sensitive information.

[10]: 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.

[11]: 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.

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: