SHOW SEMANTIC METRICS

Lists metrics registered in one or all semantic views. Each row describes a single metric with its name, source table, inferred data type, synonyms, and comment. Both base metrics and derived metrics are included.

Syntax

SHOW SEMANTIC METRICS
    [ LIKE '<pattern>' ]
    [ IN <name> ]
    [ IN SCHEMA <schema_name> | IN DATABASE <database_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 METRICS

Returns metrics across all registered semantic views, sorted by semantic view name and then metric name.

SHOW SEMANTIC METRICS IN <name>

Returns metrics for the specified semantic view only, sorted by metric 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 metrics 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 SCHEMA <schema_name>

Filters metrics to those in semantic views belonging to the specified schema.

IN DATABASE <database_name>

Filters metrics to those in semantic views belonging to the specified database.

STARTS WITH '<prefix>'

Filters metrics 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 metric 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.

Output Columns

Returns one row per metric 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 metric belongs to.

table_name

VARCHAR

The physical table name the metric is scoped to. Empty string for derived metrics (which reference other metrics rather than a specific table).

name

VARCHAR

The metric name as declared in the METRICS clause.

data_type

VARCHAR

The inferred data type. Empty string if not resolved.

synonyms

VARCHAR

JSON array of synonym strings (e.g., ["total_sales","gmv"]). Empty string if no synonyms are set.

comment

VARCHAR

The metric comment text. Empty string if no comment is set.

Examples

List metrics for a single view:

Given a semantic view orders_sv with two base metrics:

SHOW SEMANTIC METRICS IN orders_sv;
┌───────────────┬─────────────┬────────────────────┬────────────┬──────────────┬───────────┬──────────┬─────────┐
│ database_name │ schema_name │ semantic_view_name │ table_name │ name         │ data_type │ synonyms │ comment │
├───────────────┼─────────────┼────────────────────┼────────────┼──────────────┼───────────┼──────────┼─────────┤
│ memory        │ main        │ orders_sv          │ orders     │ order_count  │ BIGINT    │          │         │
│ memory        │ main        │ orders_sv          │ orders     │ total_amount │ DOUBLE    │          │         │
└───────────────┴─────────────┴────────────────────┴────────────┴──────────────┴───────────┴──────────┴─────────┘

List metrics across all views:

SHOW SEMANTIC METRICS;

Results are sorted by semantic_view_name then name.

Filter by pattern with LIKE (case-insensitive):

Find all metrics whose name contains “amount”:

SHOW SEMANTIC METRICS LIKE '%amount%';

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

Filter by schema:

SHOW SEMANTIC METRICS IN SCHEMA main;

Derived metrics appear with an empty table_name:

Derived metrics reference other metrics rather than a specific physical table. They are distinguished from base metrics by their empty table_name:

SHOW SEMANTIC METRICS IN profit_analysis;
┌───────────────┬─────────────┬────────────────────┬────────────┬─────────┬───────────┬──────────┬─────────┐
│ database_name │ schema_name │ semantic_view_name │ table_name │ name    │ data_type │ synonyms │ comment │
├───────────────┼─────────────┼────────────────────┼────────────┼─────────┼───────────┼──────────┼─────────┤
│ memory        │ main        │ profit_analysis    │ line_items │ cost    │ DOUBLE    │          │         │
│ memory        │ main        │ profit_analysis    │            │ margin  │ DOUBLE    │          │         │
│ memory        │ main        │ profit_analysis    │            │ profit  │ DOUBLE    │          │         │
│ memory        │ main        │ profit_analysis    │ line_items │ revenue │ DOUBLE    │          │         │
└───────────────┴─────────────┴────────────────────┴────────────┴─────────┴───────────┴──────────┴─────────┘

Base metrics (revenue, cost) show their physical table name. Derived metrics (profit, margin) show an empty table_name because they reference other metrics rather than a specific table.

Error: view does not exist:

SHOW SEMANTIC METRICS IN nonexistent_view;
Error: semantic view 'nonexistent_view' does not exist