SHOW SEMANTIC DIMENSIONS¶

Lists dimensions registered in one or all semantic views. Each row describes a single dimension with its name, source table, and inferred data type.

Syntax¶

SHOW SEMANTIC DIMENSIONS
    [ LIKE '<pattern>' ]
    [ IN <name> ]
    [ STARTS WITH '<prefix>' ]
    [ LIMIT <rows> ]

All clauses are optional. When multiple clauses appear, they must follow the order shown above.

Statement Variants¶

SHOW SEMANTIC DIMENSIONS: Returns dimensions across all registered semantic views, sorted by semantic view name and then dimension name.
SHOW SEMANTIC DIMENSIONS IN <name>: Returns dimensions for the specified semantic view only, sorted by dimension name. Returns an error if the view does not exist.

Parameters¶

<name>: The name of the semantic view. Required only for the single-view form (IN clause). Returns an error if the view does not exist.

Optional Filtering Clauses¶

LIKE '<pattern>': Filters dimensions to those whose name matches the pattern. Uses SQL LIKE pattern syntax: % matches any sequence of characters, _ matches a single character. Matching is case-insensitive (the extension maps LIKE to DuckDB’s ILIKE). The pattern must be enclosed in single quotes.
STARTS WITH '<prefix>': Filters dimensions to those whose name begins with the prefix. Matching is case-sensitive. The prefix must be enclosed in single quotes.
LIMIT <rows>: Restricts the output to the first rows results. Must be a positive integer.

When LIKE and STARTS WITH are both present, a dimension must satisfy both conditions (they are combined with AND).

Warning

Clause order is enforced. LIKE must come before IN, and STARTS WITH must come after IN. Placing clauses out of order produces a syntax error. For example, SHOW SEMANTIC DIMENSIONS IN my_view LIKE '%x%' is not valid.

Output Columns¶

Returns one row per dimension with 6 columns:

Column	Type	Description
`database_name`	VARCHAR	The DuckDB database containing the semantic view.
`schema_name`	VARCHAR	The DuckDB schema containing the semantic view.
`semantic_view_name`	VARCHAR	The semantic view this dimension belongs to.
`table_name`	VARCHAR	The physical table name the dimension is scoped to. Empty string if no source table is associated.
`name`	VARCHAR	The dimension name as declared in the `DIMENSIONS` clause.
`data_type`	VARCHAR	Reserved for future use. Currently always an empty string for dimensions.

Examples¶

List dimensions for a single view:

Given a semantic view orders_sv with three dimensions:

SHOW SEMANTIC DIMENSIONS IN orders_sv;

┌───────────────┬─────────────┬──────────────────────┬────────────────┬───────────────┬───────────┐
│ database_name │ schema_name │ semantic_view_name   │ table_name     │ name          │ data_type │
├───────────────┼─────────────┼──────────────────────┼────────────────┼───────────────┼───────────┤
│ memory        │ main        │ orders_sv            │ customers      │ customer_name │           │
│ memory        │ main        │ orders_sv            │ orders         │ order_date    │           │
│ memory        │ main        │ orders_sv            │ customers      │ region        │           │
└───────────────┴─────────────┴──────────────────────┴────────────────┴───────────────┴───────────┘

The table_name column shows the actual physical table name, not the alias used in the DDL.

List dimensions across all views:

SHOW SEMANTIC DIMENSIONS;

┌───────────────┬─────────────┬──────────────────────┬────────────────┬───────────────┬───────────┐
│ database_name │ schema_name │ semantic_view_name   │ table_name     │ name          │ data_type │
├───────────────┼─────────────┼──────────────────────┼────────────────┼───────────────┼───────────┤
│ memory        │ main        │ orders_sv            │ customers      │ customer_name │           │
│ memory        │ main        │ orders_sv            │ orders         │ order_date    │           │
│ memory        │ main        │ orders_sv            │ customers      │ region        │           │
│ memory        │ main        │ products_sv          │ products       │ product_name  │           │
└───────────────┴─────────────┴──────────────────────┴────────────────┴───────────────┴───────────┘

Results are sorted by semantic_view_name then name.

Filter by pattern with LIKE (case-insensitive):

Find all dimensions whose name contains “name”, across all views:

SHOW SEMANTIC DIMENSIONS LIKE '%name%';

┌───────────────┬─────────────┬──────────────────────┬────────────────┬───────────────┬───────────┐
│ database_name │ schema_name │ semantic_view_name   │ table_name     │ name          │ data_type │
├───────────────┼─────────────┼──────────────────────┼────────────────┼───────────────┼───────────┤
│ memory        │ main        │ orders_sv            │ customers      │ customer_name │           │
│ memory        │ main        │ products_sv          │ products       │ product_name  │           │
└───────────────┴─────────────┴──────────────────────┴────────────────┴───────────────┴───────────┘

Because LIKE is case-insensitive, LIKE '%NAME%' produces the same results.

Filter by pattern within a specific view:

SHOW SEMANTIC DIMENSIONS LIKE '%NAME%' IN orders_sv;

┌───────────────┬─────────────┬──────────────────────┬────────────┬───────────────┬───────────┐
│ database_name │ schema_name │ semantic_view_name   │ table_name │ name          │ data_type │
├───────────────┼─────────────┼──────────────────────┼────────────┼───────────────┼───────────┤
│ memory        │ main        │ orders_sv            │ customers  │ customer_name │           │
└───────────────┴─────────────┴──────────────────────┴────────────┴───────────────┴───────────┘

Filter by prefix with STARTS WITH (case-sensitive):

Find dimensions whose name starts with “customer”:

SHOW SEMANTIC DIMENSIONS STARTS WITH 'customer';

┌───────────────┬─────────────┬──────────────────────┬────────────┬───────────────┬───────────┐
│ database_name │ schema_name │ semantic_view_name   │ table_name │ name          │ data_type │
├───────────────┼─────────────┼──────────────────────┼────────────┼───────────────┼───────────┤
│ memory        │ main        │ orders_sv            │ customers  │ customer_name │           │
└───────────────┴─────────────┴──────────────────────┴────────────┴───────────────┴───────────┘

STARTS WITH is case-sensitive. STARTS WITH 'Customer' would return no results because the dimension is named customer_name (lowercase).

Limit the number of results:

SHOW SEMANTIC DIMENSIONS IN orders_sv LIMIT 2;

┌───────────────┬─────────────┬──────────────────────┬────────────────┬───────────────┬───────────┐
│ database_name │ schema_name │ semantic_view_name   │ table_name     │ name          │ data_type │
├───────────────┼─────────────┼──────────────────────┼────────────────┼───────────────┼───────────┤
│ memory        │ main        │ orders_sv            │ customers      │ customer_name │           │
│ memory        │ main        │ orders_sv            │ orders         │ order_date    │           │
└───────────────┴─────────────┴──────────────────────┴────────────────┴───────────────┴───────────┘

Combine multiple clauses:

All optional clauses can be combined, following the required order (LIKE, IN, STARTS WITH, LIMIT):

SHOW SEMANTIC DIMENSIONS LIKE '%name%' IN orders_sv STARTS WITH 'cust' LIMIT 10;

┌───────────────┬─────────────┬──────────────────────┬────────────┬───────────────┬───────────┐
│ database_name │ schema_name │ semantic_view_name   │ table_name │ name          │ data_type │
├───────────────┼─────────────┼──────────────────────┼────────────┼───────────────┼───────────┤
│ memory        │ main        │ orders_sv            │ customers  │ customer_name │           │
└───────────────┴─────────────┴──────────────────────┴────────────┴───────────────┴───────────┘

The dimension customer_name matches both LIKE '%name%' (contains “name”) and STARTS WITH 'cust' (begins with “cust”).

Error: view does not exist:

SHOW SEMANTIC DIMENSIONS IN nonexistent_view;

Error: semantic view 'nonexistent_view' does not exist

The statement is case-insensitive:

show semantic dimensions in orders_sv;

Tip

To see only the dimensions that are safe to use with a specific metric (avoiding fan traps in multi-table views), use SHOW SEMANTIC DIMENSIONS … FOR METRIC instead.