SHOW {session variable}

Use the SHOW to display the value of one or all of the session variables. You configure session variables using .

Required privileges

No are required to display the session variables.

Synopsis

The SHOW statement for session variables is unrelated to the other SHOW statements like , , and .

Parameters

Parameter	Description
var_name	The session variable name to show. The variable name is case-insensitive and can be enclosed in double quotes.

Supported variables

Variable name	Description	Initial value	Modify with ?	View with ?
	always_distribute_full_scans	When set to on, full table scans are always .	off	Yes	Yes
	application_name	The current application name for statistics collection.	Empty string, or cockroach for sessions from the .	Yes	Yes
autocommit_before_ddl	When the is set to on, any schema change statement that is sent during an will cause the transaction to before executing the schema change. This is useful because . : This setting is enabled by default. To disable it for , issue the following statement: ALTER ROLE ALL SET autocommit_before_ddl = false	on	Yes	Yes
bytea_output	The .	hex	Yes	Yes
	client_min_messages	The severity level of notices displayed in the . Accepted values include debug5, debug4, debug3, debug2, debug1, log, notice, warning, and error.	notice	Yes	Yes
	copy_from_atomic_enabled	If set to on, statements are committed atomically, matching PostgreSQL behavior. If set to off, COPY FROM statements are segmented into batches of 100 rows unless issued within an explicit transaction, matching the CockroachDB behavior in versions prior to v22.2.	on	Yes	Yes
	copy_transaction_quality_of_service	The default quality of service for statements in the current session. The supported options are regular, critical, and background. See .	background	Yes	Yes
	cost_scans_with_default_col_size	Whether to prevent the optimizer from considering column size when costing plans.	false	Yes	Yes
	crdb_version	The version of CockroachDB.	CockroachDB OSS version	No	Yes
New in v25.3: create_table_with_schema_locked	When enabled, ensures that all tables created during a enable the , which improves performance by indicating that a schema change is not currently ongoing.	off	Yes	Yes
database	The .	Database in connection string, or empty if not specified.	Yes	Yes
	datestyle	The input string format for and values. Accepted values include ISO,MDY, ISO,DMY, and ISO,YMD.	The value set by the sql.defaults.datestyle (ISO,MDY, by default).	Yes	Yes
	default_int_size	The size, in bytes, of an type.	8	Yes	Yes
	default_text_search_config	The dictionary used to normalize tokens and eliminate stop words when calling a without a configuration parameter. See .	english	Yes	Yes
	default_transaction_isolation	The isolation level at which transactions in the session execute ( or ). See .	SERIALIZABLE	Yes	Yes
	default_transaction_priority	The default transaction priority for the current session. The supported options are low, normal, and high.	normal	Yes	Yes
	default_transaction_quality_of_service	The default transaction quality of service for the current session. The supported options are regular, critical, and background. See .	regular	Yes	Yes
	default_transaction_read_only	The default transaction access mode for the current session. If set to on, only read operations are allowed in transactions in the current session; if set to off, both read and write operations are allowed. See for more details.	off	Yes	Yes
	default_transaction_use_follower_reads	If set to on, all read-only transactions use to allow the transaction to use follower reads. If set to off, read-only transactions will only use follower reads if an AS OF SYSTEM TIME clause is specified in the statement, with an interval of at least 4.8 seconds.	off	Yes	Yes
	disable_changefeed_replication	When true, will not emit messages for any changes (e.g., INSERT, UPDATE) issued to watched tables during that session.	false	Yes	Yes
	disallow_full_table_scans	If set to on, queries on “large” tables with a row count greater than large_full_scan_rows will not use full table or index scans. If no other query plan is possible, queries will return an error message. This setting does not apply to internal queries, which may plan full table or index scans without checking the session variable.	off	Yes	Yes
	distribute_group_by_row_count_threshold	Minimum number of rows that a GROUP BY operation must process in order to be .	1000	Yes	Yes
	distribute_scan_row_count_threshold	Minimum number of rows that a scan operation must process in order to be . This means that full table scans will not be distributed if they read fewer than this number of rows. To always distribute full table scans, set always_distribute_full_scans.	10000	Yes	Yes
	distribute_sort_row_count_threshold	Minimum number of rows that a sort operation must process in order to be .	1000	Yes	Yes
	distsql	The query distribution mode for the session. By default, CockroachDB determines which queries are faster to execute if distributed across multiple nodes. Distribution preferences for GROUP BY, scan, and sort operations are set with distribute_group_by_row_count_threshold, distribute_scan_row_count_threshold. and distribute_sort_row_count_threshold., respectively. All other queries are run through the gateway node.	auto	Yes	Yes
	enable_auto_rehoming	When enabled, the of rows in tables are automatically set to the region of the from which any or statements that operate on those rows originate.	off	Yes	Yes
	enable_create_stats_using_extremes	If on, allows manual creation of using the syntax.	on	Yes	Yes
	enable_durable_locking_for_serializable	Indicates whether CockroachDB replicates locks via , allowing locks to be preserved when leases are transferred. Note that replicating FOR UPDATE and FOR SHARE locks will add latency to those statements. This setting only affects SERIALIZABLE transactions and matches the default READ COMMITTED behavior when enabled.	off	Yes	Yes
	enable_implicit_fk_locking_for_serializable	Indicates whether CockroachDB uses to perform checks. To take effect, the enable_shared_locking_for_serializable setting must also be enabled. This setting only affects SERIALIZABLE transactions and matches the default READ COMMITTED behavior when enabled.	off	Yes	Yes
	enable_implicit_select_for_update	Indicates whether , , and statements acquire locks using the FOR UPDATE locking mode during their initial row scan, which improves performance for contended workloads. For more information about how FOR UPDATE locking works, see the documentation for .	on	Yes	Yes
	enable_implicit_transaction_for_batch_statements	Indicates whether multiple statements in a single query (a “batch statement”) will all run in the same implicit transaction, which matches the PostgreSQL wire protocol.	on	Yes	Yes
	enable_insert_fast_path	Indicates whether CockroachDB will use a specialized execution operator for inserting into a table. We recommend leaving this setting on.	on	Yes	Yes
	enable_shared_locking_for_serializable	Indicates whether are enabled for SERIALIZABLE transactions. When off, SELECT statements using FOR SHARE are still permitted under SERIALIZABLE isolation, but silently do not lock.	off	Yes	Yes
	enable_super_regions	When enabled, you can define a super region: a set of on a multi-region cluster such that your will have all of their stored only in regions that are members of the super region.	off	Yes	Yes
	enable_zigzag_join	Indicates whether the will plan certain queries using a , which searches for the desired intersection by jumping back and forth between the indexes based on the fact that after constraining indexes, they share an ordering.	on	Yes	Yes
	enforce_home_region	If set to on, queries return an error and in some cases a suggested resolution if they cannot run entirely in their home region. This can occur if a query has no home region (for example, if it reads from different home regions in a ) or a query’s home region differs from the region. Note that only tables with ZONE can be scanned without error when this is enabled. For more information about home regions, see . This feature is in preview. It is subject to change.	off	Yes	Yes
	enforce_home_region_follower_reads_enabled	If on while the setting is on, allows enforce_home_region to perform AS OF SYSTEM TIME to detect and report a query’s , if any. This feature is in preview. It is subject to change.	off	Yes	Yes
	expect_and_ignore_not_visible_columns_in_copy	If on, with no column specifiers will assume that hidden columns are in the copy data, but will ignore them when applying COPY FROM.	off	Yes	Yes
	extra_float_digits	The number of digits displayed for floating-point values. Only values between -15 and 3 are supported.	0	Yes	Yes
	force_savepoint_restart	When set to true, allows the statement to accept any name for a savepoint.	off	Yes	Yes
	foreign_key_cascades_limit	Limits the number of that run as part of a single query.	10000	Yes	Yes
	idle_in_session_timeout	Automatically terminates sessions that idle past the specified threshold. When set to 0, the session will not timeout.	The value set by the sql.defaults.idle_in_session_timeout (0s, by default).	Yes	Yes
	idle_in_transaction_session_timeout	Automatically terminates sessions that are idle in a transaction past the specified threshold. When set to 0, the session will not timeout.	The value set by the sql.defaults.idle_in_transaction_session_timeout (0s, by default).	Yes	Yes
	index_recommendations_enabled	If true, display recommendations to create indexes required to eliminate full table scans. For more details, see .	true	Yes	Yes
	inject_retry_errors_enabled	If true, any statement executed inside of an explicit transaction (with the exception of statements) will return a transaction retry error. If the client retries the transaction using the special , after the 3rd retry error, the transaction will proceed as normal. Otherwise, the errors will continue until inject_retry_errors_enabled is set to false. For more details, see .	false	Yes	Yes
	intervalstyle	The input string format for values. Accepted values include postgres, iso_8601, and sql_standard.	The value set by the sql.defaults.intervalstyle (postgres, by default).	Yes	Yes
	is_superuser	If on or true, the current user is a member of the .	User-dependent	No	Yes
	large_full_scan_rows	Determines which tables are considered “large” such that disallow_full_table_scans rejects full table or index scans of “large” tables. The default value is 0, which disallows all full table or index scans.	User-dependent	No	Yes
	legacy_varchar_typing	If on, type checking and overload resolution for types ignore overloads that cause errors, allowing comparisons between VARCHAR and non-STRING-like placeholder values to execute successfully. If off, type checking of these comparisons is more strict and must be handled with explicit type casts.	off	Yes	Yes
locality	The location of the node. </br>For more information, see .	Node-dependent	No	Yes
	lock_timeout	The amount of time a query can spend acquiring or waiting for a single . In CockroachDB, unlike in PostgreSQL, non-locking reads wait for conflicting locks to be released. As a result, the lock_timeout configuration applies to writes, and to locking and non-locking reads in read-write and read-only transactions. If lock_timeout = 0, queries do not timeout due to lock acquisitions.	The value set by the sql.defaults.lock_timeout (0, by default)	Yes	Yes
	multiple_active_portals_enabled	Whether to enable the pgwire feature.	false	Yes	Yes
	node_id	The ID of the node currently connected to. This variable is particularly useful for verifying load balanced connections.	Node-dependent	No	Yes
	null_ordered_last	Set the default ordering of NULLs. The default order is NULLs first for ascending order and NULLs last for descending order.	false	Yes	Yes
	optimizer_merge_joins_enabled	If on, the optimizer will explore query plans with merge joins.	on	Yes	Yes
	optimizer_push_offset_into_index_join	If on, the optimizer will attempt to push offset expressions into index join expressions to produce more efficient query plans.	on	Yes	Yes
	optimizer_use_forecasts	If on, the optimizer uses forecasted statistics for query planning.	on	Yes	Yes
	optimizer_use_histograms	If on, the optimizer uses collected histograms for cardinality estimation.	on	No	Yes
	optimizer_use_improved_multi_column_selectivity_estimate	If on, the optimizer uses an improved selectivity estimate for multi-column predicates.	on	Yes	Yes
	optimizer_use_improved_zigzag_join_costing	If on, the cost of is updated so they will be never be chosen over scans unless they produce fewer rows. To take effect, the enable_zigzag_join setting must also be enabled.	on	Yes	Yes
	optimizer_use_lock_op_for_serializable	If on, the optimizer uses a Lock operator to construct query plans for SELECT statements using the clauses. This setting only affects SERIALIZABLE transactions. READ COMMITTED transactions are evaluated with the Lock operator regardless of the setting.	off	Yes	Yes
	optimizer_use_merged_partial_statistics	If on, the optimizer uses merged with existing full to produce more accurate cardinality estimates.	on	Yes	Yes
	optimizer_use_multicol_stats	If on, the optimizer uses collected multi-column statistics for cardinality estimation.	on	No	Yes
	optimizer_use_not_visible_indexes	If on, the optimizer uses not visible indexes for planning.	off	No	Yes
	optimizer_use_virtual_computed_column_stats	If on, the optimizer uses table statistics on .	on	Yes	Yes
	plan_cache_mode	The type of plan that is cached in the : auto, force_generic_plan, or force_custom_plan. For more information, refer to .	auto	Yes	Yes
	plpgsql_use_strict_into	If on, PL/pgSQL behave as though the STRICT option is specified. This causes the SQL statement to error if it does not return exactly one row.	off	Yes	Yes
	pg_trgm.similarity_threshold	The threshold above which a string comparison returns true. The value must be between 0 and 1. For more information, see .	0.3	Yes	Yes
	prefer_lookup_joins_for_fks	If on, the optimizer prefers to when performing checks.	off	Yes	Yes
	reorder_joins_limit	Maximum number of joins that the optimizer will attempt to reorder when searching for an optimal query execution plan. For more information, see .	8	Yes	Yes
	require_explicit_primary_keys	If on, CockroachDB throws an error for all tables created without an explicit primary key defined.	off	Yes	Yes
	search_path	A list of schemas that will be searched to resolve unqualified table or function names. For more details, see .	public	Yes	Yes
	serial_normalization	Specifies the default handling of in table definitions. Valid options include 'rowid', 'virtual_sequence', sql_sequence, sql_sequence_cached, , and unordered_rowid. If set to 'virtual_sequence', the SERIAL type auto-creates a sequence for better compatibility with Hibernate sequences. If set to sql_sequence_cached or sql_sequence_cached_node, you can use the sql.defaults.serial_sequences_cache_size to control the number of values to cache in a user’s session, with a default of 256. If set to unordered_rowid, the SERIAL type generates a globally unique 64-bit integer (a combination of the insert timestamp and the ID of the node executing the statement) that does not have unique ordering.	'rowid'	Yes	Yes
	server_version	The version of PostgreSQL that CockroachDB emulates.	Version-dependent	No	Yes
	server_version_num	The version of PostgreSQL that CockroachDB emulates.	Version-dependent	Yes	Yes
	session_id	The ID of the current session.	Session-dependent	No	Yes
	session_user	The user connected for the current session.	User in connection string	No	Yes
	sql_safe_updates	If true, the following potentially unsafe SQL statements are disallowed: of a non-empty database and all dependent objects; and without a WHERE clause, unless a clause is included; and without a WHERE or clause; ; and converting an existing table to using , unless a has already been added to the table. For more details, refer to .	true for interactive sessions from the , false for sessions from other clients	Yes	Yes
	statement_timeout	The amount of time a statement can run before being stopped. This value can be an int (e.g., 10) and will be interpreted as milliseconds. It can also be an interval or string argument, where the string can be parsed as a valid interval (e.g., '4s'). A value of 0 turns it off.	The value set by the sql.defaults.statement_timeout (0s, by default).	Yes	Yes
	stub_catalog_tables	If off, querying an unimplemented, empty table will result in an error, as is the case in v20.2 and earlier. If on, querying an unimplemented, empty pg_catalog table simply returns no rows.	on	Yes	Yes
	timezone	The default time zone for the current session.	UTC	Yes	Yes
	tracing	The trace recording state.	off	Yes	Yes
	transaction_isolation	The isolation level at which the transaction executes ( or ). See .	SERIALIZABLE	Yes	Yes
	transaction_priority	The priority of the current transaction. See Transactions: Transaction priorities for more details. This session variable was called transaction priority (with a space) in CockroachDB 1.x. It has been renamed for compatibility with PostgreSQL.	NORMAL	Yes	Yes
	transaction_read_only	The access mode of the current transaction. See for more details.	off	Yes	Yes
	transaction_rows_read_err	The limit for the number of rows read by a SQL transaction. If this value is exceeded the transaction will fail (or the event will be logged to SQL_INTERNAL_PERF for internal transactions).	0	Yes	Yes
	transaction_rows_read_log	The threshold for the number of rows read by a SQL transaction. If this value is exceeded, the event will be logged to SQL_PERF (or SQL_INTERNAL_PERF for internal transactions).	0	Yes	Yes
	transaction_rows_written_err	The limit for the number of rows written by a SQL transaction. If this value is exceeded the transaction will fail (or the event will be logged to SQL_INTERNAL_PERF for internal transactions).	0	Yes	Yes
	transaction_rows_written_log	The threshold for the number of rows written by a SQL transaction. If this value is exceeded, the event will be logged to SQL_PERF (or SQL_INTERNAL_PERF for internal transactions).	0	Yes	Yes
	transaction_status	The state of the current transaction. See for more details.	NoTxn	No	Yes
	transaction_timeout	Aborts an explicit when it runs longer than the configured duration. Stored in milliseconds; can be expressed in milliseconds or as an .	0	Yes	Yes
	troubleshooting_mode_enabled	When enabled, avoid performing additional work on queries, such as collecting and emitting telemetry data. This session variable is particularly useful when the cluster is experiencing issues, unavailability, or failure.	off	Yes	Yes
	use_declarative_schema_changer	Whether to use the declarative schema changer for supported statements.	on	Yes	Yes
	vector_search_beam_size	The size of the vector search beam, which determines how many vector partitions are considered during query execution. For details, refer to .	32	Yes	Yes
	vectorize	The vectorized execution engine mode. Options include on and off. For more details, see .	on	Yes	Yes
	virtual_cluster_name	The name of the virtual cluster that the SQL client is connected to.	Session-dependent	No	Yes

The following session variables are exposed only for backwards compatibility with earlier CockroachDB releases and have no impact on how CockroachDB runs:

Variable name	Initial value	Modify with ?	View with ?
	backslash_quote	safe_encoding	No	Yes
	client_encoding	UTF8	No	Yes
	default_tablespace		No	Yes
	enable_drop_enum_value	off	Yes	Yes
	enable_seqscan	on	Yes	Yes
	escape_string_warning	on	No	Yes
	experimental_enable_hash_sharded_indexes	off	Yes	Yes
	integer_datetimes	on	No	Yes
	max_identifier_length	128	No	Yes
	max_index_keys	32	No	Yes
	row_security	off	No	Yes
	standard_conforming_strings	on	No	Yes
	server_encoding	UTF8	Yes	Yes
	synchronize_seqscans	on	No	Yes
	synchronous_commit	on	Yes	Yes

For session variables on features in preview, see .

Special syntax cases supported for compatibility:

Syntax	Equivalent to
SHOW TRANSACTION PRIORITY	SHOW "transaction priority"
SHOW TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL	SHOW "transaction isolation level"
SHOW TIME ZONE	SHOW "timezone"
SHOW TRANSACTION STATUS	SHOW "transaction status"

Examples

Showing the value of a single session variable

> SHOW DATABASE;

  database
------------
  movr
(1 row)

Showing the value of all session variables

> SHOW ALL;

       variable       |      value
----------------------+-------------------
  application_name    | $ cockroach demo
  bytea_output        | hex
  client_encoding     | UTF8
  client_min_messages | notice
...

See also

• , including