STL_UTILITYTEXT - Amazon Redshift
Table columnsSample queries

STL_UTILITYTEXT

Captures the text of non-SELECT SQL commands run on the database.

Query the STL_UTILITYTEXT view to capture the following subset of SQL statements that were run on the system:

  • ABORT, BEGIN, COMMIT, END, ROLLBACK

  • ANALYZE

  • CALL

  • CANCEL

  • COMMENT

  • CREATE, ALTER, DROP DATABASE

  • CREATE, ALTER, DROP USER

  • EXPLAIN

  • GRANT, REVOKE

  • LOCK

  • RESET

  • SET

  • SHOW

  • TRUNCATE

See also STL_DDLTEXT, STL_QUERYTEXT, and SVL_STATEMENTTEXT.

Use the STARTTIME and ENDTIME columns to find out which statements were logged during a given time period. Long blocks of SQL text are broken into lines 200 characters long; the SEQUENCE column identifies fragments of text that belong to a single statement.

STL_UTILITYTEXT is visible to all users. Superusers can see all rows; regular users can see only their own data. For more information, see Visibility of data in system tables and views.

Some or all of the data in this table can also be found in the SYS monitoring view SYS_QUERY_HISTORY. The data in the SYS monitoring view is formatted to be easier to use and understand. We recommend that you use the SYS monitoring view for your queries.

Table columns

Column name Data type Description
userid integer ID of the user who generated the entry.
xid bigint Transaction ID.
pid integer Process ID associated with the query statement.
label character(320) Either the name of the file used to run the query or a label defined with a SET QUERY_GROUP command. If the query is not file-based or the QUERY_GROUP parameter is not set, this field is blank.
starttime timestamp Time in UTC that the query started. Total time includes queuing and execution. with 6 digits of precision for fractional seconds. For example: 2009-06-12 11:29:19.131358.
endtime timestamp Time in UTC that the query finished. Total time includes queuing and execution. with 6 digits of precision for fractional seconds. For example: 2009-06-12 11:29:19.131358.
sequence integer When a single statement contains more than 200 characters, additional rows are logged for that statement. Sequence 0 is the first row, 1 is the second, and so on.
text character(200) SQL text, in 200-character increments. This field might contain special characters such as backslash (\\) and newline (\n).

Sample queries

The following query returns the text for "utility" commands that were run on January 26th, 2012. In this case, some SET commands and a SHOW ALL command were run: 

select starttime, sequence, rtrim(text)
from stl_utilitytext
where starttime like '2012-01-26%'
order by starttime, sequence;

starttime          | sequence |              rtrim
---------------------------+-----+----------------------------------
2012-01-26 13:05:52.529235 |   0 | show all;
2012-01-26 13:20:31.660255 |   0 | SET query_group to ''
2012-01-26 13:20:54.956131 |   0 | SET query_group to 'soldunsold.sql'
...

Reconstructing Stored SQL

To reconstruct the SQL stored in the text column of STL_UTILITYTEXT, run a SELECT statement to create SQL from 1 or more parts in the text column. Before running the reconstructed SQL, replace any (\n) special characters with a new line. The result of the following SELECT statement is rows of reconstructed SQL in the query_statement field.

SELECT LISTAGG(CASE WHEN LEN(RTRIM(text)) = 0 THEN text ELSE RTRIM(text) END) WITHIN GROUP (ORDER BY sequence) as query_statement 
FROM stl_utilitytext GROUP BY xid order by xid;

For example, the following query sets the query_group to a string of zeros. The query itself is longer than 200 characters and is stored in parts in STL_UTILITYTEXT.

set query_group to '00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000                  000000';

In this example, the query is stored in 2 parts (rows) in the text column of STL_UTILITYTEXT.

select query, sequence, text
from stl_utilitytext where query=pg_last_query_id() order by query desc, sequence limit 10;


         starttime          | sequence |                                                                                                   text                                                                                                   
----------------------------+----------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 2019-07-23 22:55:34.926198 |        0 | set query_group to '00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000\n0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
 2019-07-23 22:55:34.926198 |        1 |                   000000';

To reconstruct the SQL stored in STL_UTILITYTEXT, run the following SQL. 

select LISTAGG(CASE WHEN LEN(RTRIM(text)) = 0 THEN text ELSE RTRIM(text) END, '') within group (order by sequence) AS query_statement 
from stl_utilitytext where query=pg_last_query_id();

To use the resulting reconstructed SQL in your client, replace any (\n) special characters with a new line. 


                                                                                                                                      query_statement                                                                                                                                       
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 set query_group to '00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000\n0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000                  000000';