CockroachDB comes with a built-in client for executing SQL statements from an interactive shell or directly from the command line. To use this client, run the cockroach sql
command as described below.
To exit the interactive shell, use \q
, quit
, exit
, or ctrl-d
.
If you want to experiment with CockroachDB SQL but do not have a cluster already running, you can use the cockroach demo
command to open a shell to a temporary, in-memory cluster.
Synopsis
Start the interactive SQL shell:
$ cockroach sql <flags>
Execute SQL from the command line:
$ cockroach sql --execute="<sql statement>;<sql statement>" --execute="<sql-statement>" <flags>
$ echo "<sql statement>;<sql statement>" | cockroach sql <flags>
$ cockroach sql <flags> < file-containing-statements.sql
Exit the interactive SQL shell:
$ \q
$ quit
$ exit
ctrl-d
View help:
$ cockroach sql --help
Flags
The sql
command supports the following types of flags:
General
- To start an interactive SQL shell, run
cockroach sql
with all appropriate connection flags or use just the--url
flag, which includes connection details. - To execute SQL statements from the command line, use the
--execute
flag.
Flag | Description |
---|---|
--database -d |
A database name to use as current database in the newly created session. |
--echo-sql |
Reveal the SQL statements sent implicitly by the command-line utility. For a demonstration, see the example below. This can also be enabled within the interactive SQL shell via the \set echo shell command. |
--execute -e |
Execute SQL statements directly from the command line, without opening a shell. This flag can be set multiple times, and each instance can contain one or more statements separated by semi-colons. If an error occurs in any statement, the command exits with a non-zero status code and further statements are not executed. The results of each statement are printed to the standard output (see --format for formatting options).For a demonstration of this and other ways to execute SQL from the command line, see the example below. |
--format |
How to display table rows printed to the standard output. Possible values: tsv , csv , table , raw , records , sql , html .Default: table for sessions that output on a terminal; tsv otherwiseThis flag corresponds to the display_format client-side option. |
--safe-updates |
Disallow potentially unsafe SQL statements, including DELETE without a WHERE clause, UPDATE without a WHERE clause, and ALTER TABLE ... DROP COLUMN .Default: true for interactive sessions; false otherwisePotentially unsafe SQL statements can also be allowed/disallowed for an entire session via the sql_safe_updates session variable. |
--set |
Set a client-side option before starting the SQL shell or executing SQL statements from the command line via --execute . This flag may be specified multiple times, once per option.After starting the SQL shell, the \set and unset commands can be use to enable and disable client-side options as well. |
--watch |
Repeat the SQL statements specified with --execute or -e until a SQL error occurs or the process is terminated. --watch applies to all --execute or -e flags in use.You must also specify an interval at which to repeat the statement, followed by a time unit. For example, to specify an interval of 5 seconds, use 5s .Note that this flag is intended for simple monitoring scenarios during development and testing. See the example below. |
Client connection
Flag | Description |
---|---|
--host |
The server host and port number to connect to. This can be the address of any node in the cluster. Env Variable: COCKROACH_HOST Default: localhost:26257 |
--port -p |
The server port to connect to. Note: The port number can also be specified via --host . Env Variable: COCKROACH_PORT Default: 26257 |
--user -u |
The SQL user that will own the client session. Env Variable: COCKROACH_USER Default: root |
--insecure |
Use an insecure connection. Env Variable: COCKROACH_INSECURE Default: false |
--certs-dir |
The path to the certificate directory containing the CA and client certificates and client key. Env Variable: COCKROACH_CERTS_DIR Default: ${HOME}/.cockroach-certs/ |
--url |
A connection URL to use instead of the other arguments. Env Variable: COCKROACH_URL Default: no URL |
See Client Connection Parameters for more details.
Logging
By default, the sql
command logs errors to stderr
.
If you need to troubleshoot this command's behavior, you can change its logging behavior.
Session and output types
cockroach sql
exhibits different behaviors depending on whether or not the session is interactive and/or whether or not the session outputs on a terminal.
- A session is interactive when
cockroach sql
is invoked without the--execute
flag and input is not redirected from a file. In such cases:- The
errexit
option defaults tofalse
. - The
check_syntax
option defaults totrue
if supported by the CockroachDB server (this is checked when the shell starts up). - Ctrl+C at the prompt will only terminate the shell if no other input was entered on the same line already.
- The shell will attempt to set the
safe_updates
session variable totrue
on the server.
- The
- A session outputs on a terminal when output is not redirected to a file. In such cases:
- The
--format
flag and its correspondingdisplay_format
option default totable
. These default totsv
otherwise. - The
show_times
option defaults totrue
.
- The
When a session is both interactive and outputs on a terminal, cockroach sql
also activates the interactive prompt with a line editor that can be used to modify the current line of input. Also, command history becomes active.
SQL shell
Welcome message
When the SQL shell connects (or reconnects) to a CockroachDB node, it prints a welcome text with some tips and CockroachDB version and cluster details:
#
# Welcome to the CockroachDB SQL shell.
# All statements must be terminated by a semicolon.
# To exit, type: \q.
#
# Server version: CockroachDB CCL v20.1.17 (x86_64-apple-darwin17.7.0, built 2019/09/13 00:07:19, go1.12.6) (same version as client)
# Cluster ID: 7fb9f5b4-a801-4851-92e9-c0db292d03f1
#
# Enter \? for a brief introduction.
#
>
The Version and Cluster ID details are particularly noteworthy:
- When the client and server versions of CockroachDB are the same, the shell prints the
Server version
followed by(same version as client)
. - When the client and server versions are different, the shell prints both the
Client version
andServer version
. In this case, you may want to plan an upgrade of older client or server versions. - Since every CockroachDB cluster has a unique ID, you can use the
Cluster ID
field to verify that your client is always connecting to the correct cluster.
Commands
The following commands can be used within the interactive SQL shell:
Command | Usage |
---|---|
\? help |
View this help within the shell. |
\q quit exit ctrl-d |
Exit the shell. When no text follows the prompt, ctrl-c exits the shell as well; otherwise, ctrl-c clears the line. |
\! |
Run an external command and print its results to stdout . See the example below. |
\| |
Run the output of an external command as SQL statements. See the example below. |
\set <option> \unset <option> |
Enable or disable a client-side option. For more details, see Client-side options. You can also use the --set flag to enable or disable client-side options before starting the SQL shell. |
\show |
During a multi-line statement or transaction, show the SQL entered so far. |
\h <statement> \hf <function> |
View help for specific SQL statements or functions. See SQL shell help for more details. |
\l |
List all databases in the CockroachDB cluster. This command is equivalent to SHOW DATABASES . |
\dt d |
Show the tables of the current schema in the current database. These commands are equivalent to SHOW TABLES . |
\du |
List the users for all databases. This command is equivalent to SHOW USERS . |
\d <table> |
Show details about columns in the specified table. This command is equivalent to SHOW COLUMNS . |
Client-side options
- To view option descriptions and how they are currently set, use
\set
without any options. - To enable or disable an option, use
\set <option> <value>
or\unset <option> <value>
. You can also use the form<option>=<value>
. - If an option accepts a boolean value:
\set <option>
without<value>
is equivalent to\set <option> true
, and\unset <option>
without<value>
is equivalent to\set <option> false
.on
and0
are aliases fortrue
, andoff
and1
are aliases forfalse
.
Client Options | Description |
---|---|
auto_trace |
For every statement executed, the shell also produces the trace for that statement in a separate result below. A trace is also produced in case the statement produces a SQL error. Default: off To enable this option, run \set auto_trace on . |
display_format |
How to display table rows printed within the interactive SQL shell. Possible values: tsv , csv , table , raw , records , sql , html .Default: table for sessions that output on a terminal; tsv otherwiseTo change this option, run \set display_format <format> . For a demonstration, see the example below. |
echo |
Reveal the SQL statements sent implicitly by the SQL shell. Default: false To enable this option, run \set echo . For a demonstration, see the example below. |
errexit |
Exit the SQL shell upon encountering an error. Default: false for interactive sessions; true otherwiseTo enable this option, run \set errexit . |
check_syntax |
Validate SQL syntax. This ensures that a typo or mistake during user entry does not inconveniently abort an ongoing transaction previously started from the interactive shell. Default: true for interactive sessions; false otherwise.To disable this option, run \unset check_syntax . |
show_times |
Reveal the time a query takes to complete. Default: true To disable this option, run \unset show_times . |
smart_prompt |
Query the server for the current transaction status and return it to the prompt. Note that this option is respected only when ECHO is enabled as well.Default: true for interactive sessions; false otherwiseTo disable this option, run \unset smart_prompt . |
Help
Within the SQL shell, you can get interactive help about statements and functions:
Command | Usage |
---|---|
\h ?? |
List all available SQL statements, by category. |
\hf |
List all available SQL functions, in alphabetical order. |
\h <statement> or <statement> ? |
View help for a specific SQL statement. |
\hf <function> or <function> ? |
View help for a specific SQL function. |
Examples
> \h UPDATE
Command: UPDATE
Description: update rows of a table
Category: data manipulation
Syntax:
UPDATE <tablename> [[AS] <name>] SET ... [WHERE <expr>] [RETURNING <exprs...>]
See also:
SHOW TABLES
INSERT
UPSERT
DELETE
https://www.cockroachlabs.com/docs/v2.1/update.html
> \hf uuid_v4
Function: uuid_v4
Category: built-in functions
Returns a UUID.
Signature Category
uuid_v4() -> bytes [ID Generation]
See also:
https://www.cockroachlabs.com/docs/v2.1/functions-and-operators.html
Shortcuts
The SQL shell supports many shortcuts, such as ctrl-r
for searching the shell history. For full details, see this Readline Shortcut reference.
Error messages and SQLSTATE
codes
When CockroachDB encounters a SQL error, it returns the following information to the client (whether cockroach sql
or another client application):
- An error message, prefixed with the "Severity" field of the PostgreSQL wire protocol. For example,
ERROR: insert on table "shipments" violates foreign key constraint "fk_customers"
. - A 5-digit
SQLSTATE
error code as defined by the SQL standard. For example,SQLSTATE: 23503
.
For example, the following query (taken from this example of adding multiple foreign key constraints) results in a SQL error, and returns both an error message and a SQLSTATE
code as described above.
> INSERT INTO shipments (carrier, status, customer_id) VALUES ('DHL', 'At facility', 2000);
ERROR: insert on table "shipments" violates foreign key constraint "fk_customers"
SQLSTATE: 23503
DETAIL: Key (customer_id)=(2000) is not present in table "customers".
The SQLSTATE
code in particular can be helpful in the following ways:
- It is a standard SQL error code that you can look up in documentation and search for on the web. For any given error state, CockroachDB tries to produce the same
SQLSTATE
code as PostgreSQL. - If you are developing automation that uses the CockroachDB SQL shell, it is more reliable to check for
SQLSTATE
values than for error message strings, which are likely to change.
Examples
Start a SQL shell
In these examples, we connect a SQL shell to a secure cluster.
# Using standard connection flags:
$ cockroach sql \
--certs-dir=certs \
--user=maxroach \
--host=12.345.67.89 \
--database=critterdb
# Using the --url flag:
$ cockroach sql \
--url="postgresql://maxroach@12.345.67.89:26257/critterdb?sslcert=certs/client.maxroach.crt&sslkey=certs/client.maxroach.key&sslmode=verify-full&sslrootcert=certs/ca.crt"
In these examples, we connect a SQL shell to an insecure cluster.
# Using standard connection flags:
$ cockroach sql --insecure \
--user=maxroach \
--host=12.345.67.89 \
--database=critterdb
# Using the --url flag:
$ cockroach sql \
--url="postgresql://maxroach@12.345.67.89:26257/critterdb?sslmode=disable"
Execute SQL statement within the SQL shell
This example assume that we have already started the SQL shell (see examples above).
> CREATE TABLE animals (id INT PRIMARY KEY DEFAULT unique_rowid(), name STRING);
> INSERT INTO animals (name) VALUES ('bobcat'), ('🐢 '), ('barn owl');
> SELECT * FROM animals;
+--------------------+----------+
| id | name |
+--------------------+----------+
| 148899952591994881 | bobcat |
| 148899952592060417 | 🐢 |
| 148899952592093185 | barn owl |
+--------------------+----------+
Execute SQL statements from the command line
In these examples, we use the --execute
flag to execute statements from the command line:
# Statements with a single --execute flag:
$ cockroach sql --insecure \
--execute="CREATE TABLE roaches (name STRING, country STRING); INSERT INTO roaches VALUES ('American Cockroach', 'United States'), ('Brownbanded Cockroach', 'United States')" \
--user=maxroach \
--host=12.345.67.89 \
--database=critterdb
CREATE TABLE
INSERT 2
# Statements with multiple --execute flags:
$ cockroach sql --insecure \
--execute="CREATE TABLE roaches (name STRING, country STRING)" \
--execute="INSERT INTO roaches VALUES ('American Cockroach', 'United States'), ('Brownbanded Cockroach', 'United States')" \
--user=maxroach \
--host=12.345.67.89 \
--database=critterdb
CREATE TABLE
INSERT 2
In this example, we use the echo
command to execute statements from the command line:
# Statements with the echo command:
$ echo "SHOW TABLES; SELECT * FROM roaches;" | cockroach sql --insecure --user=maxroach --host=12.345.67.89 --database=critterdb
+----------+
| Table |
+----------+
| roaches |
+----------+
+-----------------------+---------------+
| name | country |
+-----------------------+---------------+
| American Cockroach | United States |
| Brownbanded Cockroach | United States |
+-----------------------+---------------+
Control how table rows are printed
In these examples, we show tables and special characters printed in various formats.
When the standard output is a terminal, --format
defaults to table
and tables are printed with ASCII art and special characters are not escaped for easy human consumption:
$ cockroach sql --insecure \
--execute="SELECT '🐥' AS chick, '🐢' AS turtle" \
--user=maxroach \
--host=12.345.67.89 \
--database=critterdb
+-------+--------+
| chick | turtle |
+-------+--------+
| 🐥 | 🐢 |
+-------+--------+
However, you can explicitly set --format
to another format, for example, tsv
or html
:
$ cockroach sql --insecure \
--format=tsv \
--execute="SELECT '🐥' AS chick, '🐢' AS turtle" \
--user=maxroach \
--host=12.345.67.89 \
--database=critterdb
1 row
chick turtle
🐥 🐢
$ cockroach sql --insecure \
--format=html \
--execute="SELECT '🐥' AS chick, '🐢' AS turtle" \
--user=maxroach \
--host=12.345.67.89 \
--database=critterdb
<table>
<thead><tr><th>chick</th><th>turtle</th></tr></head>
<tbody>
<tr><td>🐥</td><td>🐢</td></tr>
</tbody>
</table>
When piping output to another command or a file, --format
defaults to tsv
:
$ cockroach sql --insecure \
--execute="SELECT '🐥' AS chick, '🐢' AS turtle" > out.txt \
--user=maxroach \
--host=12.345.67.89 \
--database=critterdb
$ cat out.txt
1 row
chick turtle
🐥 🐢
However, you can explicitly set --format
to another format, for example, table
:
$ cockroach sql --insecure \
--format=table \
--execute="SELECT '🐥' AS chick, '🐢' AS turtle" > out.txt \
--user=maxroach \
--host=12.345.67.89 \
--database=critterdb
$ cat out.txt
+-------+--------+
| chick | turtle |
+-------+--------+
| 🐥 | 🐢 |
+-------+--------+
(1 row)
Make the output of SHOW
statements selectable
To make it possible to select from the output of SHOW
statements, set --format
to raw
:
$ cockroach sql --insecure \
--format=raw \
--user=maxroach \
--host=12.345.67.89 \
--database=critterdb
> SHOW CREATE customers;
# 2 columns
# row 1
## 14
test.customers
## 185
CREATE TABLE customers (
id INT NOT NULL,
email STRING NULL,
CONSTRAINT "primary" PRIMARY KEY (id ASC),
UNIQUE INDEX customers_email_key (email ASC),
FAMILY "primary" (id, email)
)
# 1 row
When --format
is not set to raw
, you can use the display_format
SQL shell option to change the output format within the interactive session:
> \set display_format raw
# 2 columns
# row 1
## 14
test.customers
## 185
CREATE TABLE customers (
id INT NOT NULL,
email STRING NULL,
CONSTRAINT "primary" PRIMARY KEY (id ASC),
UNIQUE INDEX customers_email_key (email ASC),
FAMILY "primary" (id, email)
)
# 1 row
Execute SQL statements from a file
In this example, we show and then execute the contents of a file containing SQL statements.
$ cat statements.sql
CREATE TABLE roaches (name STRING, country STRING);
INSERT INTO roaches VALUES ('American Cockroach', 'United States'), ('Brownbanded Cockroach', 'United States');
$ cockroach sql --insecure \
--user=maxroach \
--host=12.345.67.89 \
--database=critterdb \
< statements.sql
CREATE TABLE
INSERT 2
Run external commands from the SQL shell
In this example, we use \!
to look at the rows in a CSV file before creating a table and then using \|
to insert those rows into the table.
> \! cat test.csv
12, 13, 14
10, 20, 30
> CREATE TABLE csv (x INT, y INT, z INT);
> \| IFS=","; while read a b c; do echo "insert into csv values ($a, $b, $c);"; done < test.csv;
> SELECT * FROM csv;
+----+----+----+
| x | y | z |
+----+----+----+
| 12 | 13 | 14 |
| 10 | 20 | 30 |
+----+----+----+
In this example, we create a table and then use \|
to programmatically insert values.
> CREATE TABLE for_loop (x INT);
> \| for ((i=0;i<10;++i)); do echo "INSERT INTO for_loop VALUES ($i);"; done
> SELECT * FROM for_loop;
+---+
| x |
+---+
| 0 |
| 1 |
| 2 |
| 3 |
| 4 |
| 5 |
| 6 |
| 7 |
| 8 |
| 9 |
+---+
Edit SQL statements in an external editor
In applications that use GNU Readline (such as bash), you can edit a long line in your preferred editor by typing Ctrl-x Ctrl-e
. However, CockroachDB uses the BSD-licensed libedit, which does not include this functionality.
If you would like to be able to edit the current line in an external editor by typing C-x C-e
as in bash
, do the following:
- Install the
vipe
program (from the moreutils suite of tools). Edit your
~/.editrc
to add the following line, which takes advantage of the SQL client's ability to run external commands:cockroach:bind -s ^X^E '^A^K\\\| echo \"^Y\" | vipe\r'
This tells libedit to translate C-x C-e
into the following commands:
- Move to the beginning of the current line.
- Cut the whole line.
- Paste the line into your editor via
vipe
. - Pass the edited file back to the SQL client when
vipe
exits.
Future versions of the SQL client may opt to use a different back-end for reading input, in which case please refer to this page for additional updates.
Allow potentially unsafe SQL statements
The --safe-updates
flag defaults to true
. This prevents SQL statements that may have broad, undesired side-effects. For example, by default, we cannot use DELETE
without a WHERE
clause to delete all rows from a table:
$ cockroach sql --insecure --execute="SELECT * FROM db1.t1"
+----+------+
| id | name |
+----+------+
| 1 | a |
| 2 | b |
| 3 | c |
| 4 | d |
| 5 | e |
| 6 | f |
| 7 | g |
| 8 | h |
| 9 | i |
| 10 | j |
+----+------+
(10 rows)
$ cockroach sql --insecure --execute="DELETE FROM db1.t1"
Error: pq: rejected: DELETE without WHERE clause (sql_safe_updates = true)
Failed running "sql"
However, to allow an "unsafe" statement, you can set --safe-updates=false
:
$ cockroach sql --insecure --safe-updates=false --execute="DELETE FROM db1.t1"
DELETE 10
sql_safe_updates
session variable.Reveal the SQL statements sent implicitly by the command-line utility
In this example, we use the --execute
flag to execute statements from the command line and the --echo-sql
flag to reveal SQL statements sent implicitly:
$ cockroach sql --insecure \
--execute="CREATE TABLE t1 (id INT PRIMARY KEY, name STRING)" \
--execute="INSERT INTO t1 VALUES (1, 'a'), (2, 'b'), (3, 'c')" \
--user=maxroach \
--host=12.345.67.89 \
--database=db1
--echo-sql
# Server version: CockroachDB CCL f8f3c9317 (darwin amd64, built 2017/09/13 15:05:35, go1.8) (same version as client)
# Cluster ID: 847a4ba5-c78a-465a-b1a0-59fae3aab520
> SET sql_safe_updates = TRUE
> CREATE TABLE t1 (id INT PRIMARY KEY, name STRING)
CREATE TABLE
> INSERT INTO t1 VALUES (1, 'a'), (2, 'b'), (3, 'c')
INSERT 3
In this example, we start the interactive SQL shell and enable the echo
shell option to reveal SQL statements sent implicitly:
$ cockroach sql --insecure \
--user=maxroach \
--host=12.345.67.89 \
--database=db1
> \set echo
> INSERT INTO db1.t1 VALUES (4, 'd'), (5, 'e'), (6, 'f');
> INSERT INTO db1.t1 VALUES (4, 'd'), (5, 'e'), (6, 'f');
INSERT 3
Time: 2.426534ms
> SHOW TRANSACTION STATUS
> SHOW DATABASE
Repeat a SQL statement
Repeating SQL queries on a table can be useful for monitoring purposes. With the --watch
flag, you can repeat the statements specified with a --execute
or -e
flag periodically, until a SQL error occurs or the process is terminated.
For example, if you want to monitor the number of queries running on the current node, you can use cockroach sql
with the --watch
flag to query the node's crdb_internal.node_statement_statistics
table for the query count:
$ cockroach sql --insecure \
--execute="SELECT SUM(count) FROM crdb_internal.node_statement_statistics" \
--watch 1m
sum
+-----+
926
(1 row)
sum
+------+
4227
(1 row)
^C
In this example, the statement is executed every minute. We let the process run for a couple minutes before stopping it with Ctrl+C.
Connect to a cluster listening for Unix domain socket connections
New in v20.1: To connect to a cluster that is running on the same machine as your client and is listening for Unix domain socket connections, specify a Unix domain socket URI with the --url
connection parameter.
For example, suppose you start a single-node cluster with the following cockroach start-single-node
command:
$ cockroach start-single-node --insecure --socket-dir=/tmp
CockroachDB node starting at 2020-04-22 15:07:17.232326 +0000 UTC (took 0.9s)
build: CCL v20.1.0 @ 2020/04/22 13:54:06 (go1.13.4)
webui: http://localhost:8080
sql: postgresql://root@localhost:26257?sslmode=disable
RPC client flags: ./cockroach <client cmd> --host=localhost:26257 --insecure
socket: /tmp/.s.PGSQL.26257
logs: /path/cockroach/cockroach-data/logs
temp dir: /path/cockroach/cockroach-data/cockroach-temp919020614
external I/O path: /path/cockroach/cockroach-data/extern
store[0]: path=/path/cockroach/cockroach-data
storage engine: rocksdb
status: restarted pre-existing node
clusterID: 9ce204b4-4b79-4809-83b5-2dc54c190cb2
nodeID: 1
To connect to this cluster with a socket:
$ cockroach sql --url='postgres://@?host=/tmp&port=26257'