SHOW SEMANTIC DIMENSIONS¶

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

Syntax¶

SHOW SEMANTIC DIMENSIONS
    [ LIKE '<pattern>' ]
    [ IN { <name> | ACCOUNT
         | DATABASE [ <database_name> ]
         | SCHEMA [ [<database_name>.]<schema_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.

IN ...

Scopes the listing. The alternatives are mutually exclusive – IN appears at most once, so a view name and a schema cannot both be given.

IN <name>: Returns dimensions for that semantic view only.
IN ACCOUNT: Returns everything, the same as omitting IN entirely. Accepted for Snowflake compatibility; DuckDB has no account.
IN DATABASE [ <database_name> ]: Filters dimensions to semantic views in that database, or the current database when the name is omitted.
IN SCHEMA [ [<database_name>.]<schema_name> ]: Filters dimensions to semantic views in that schema, or the current schema when the name is omitted. Qualifying the schema with a database matches on both, so a same-named schema in another database is excluded.

Schema and database names follow DuckDB’s identifier rule: quotes are stripped and case is ignored. A view named schema or database must be quoted (IN "schema") to be read as a view name rather than as the scope keyword.

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 non-negative integer; LIMIT 0 is accepted and returns no rows.

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 8 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	The declared output type. Empty for every view created since v0.10.0 – no surface can declare a type and nothing infers one. Populated only for views stored before that release. See Reported Data Types.
`synonyms`	VARCHAR	JSON array of synonym strings (e.g., `["territory","sales_region"]`). Empty string if no synonyms are set.
`comment`	VARCHAR	The dimension comment text. Empty string if no comment is set.

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 │ synonyms │ comment │
├───────────────┼─────────────┼────────────────────┼────────────┼───────────────┼───────────┼──────────┼─────────┤
│ 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.

data_type is empty here because no surface can declare a member’s output type: the SQL DDL has no clause for it, and the YAML output_type field was withdrawn because GET_DDL could not carry it (a restored view silently lost the cast). Nothing infers one either – v0.10.0 removed the define-time inference pass – so the column is populated only for views stored before that release. Reporting the type an expression actually produces would require probing it on the read side, at SHOW bind time; that is a known limitation and is not implemented today. See Reported Data Types.

List dimensions across all views:

SHOW SEMANTIC DIMENSIONS;

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%';

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

Filter by schema:

SHOW SEMANTIC DIMENSIONS IN SCHEMA main;

Filter by pattern within a specific view:

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

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.