SET (session variable)

The SET statement can modify one of the session configuration variables. These can also be queried via SHOW.

Warning:
In some cases, client drivers can drop and restart the connection to the server. When this happens, any session configurations made with SET statements are lost. It is therefore more reliable to configure the session in the client's connection string. For examples in different languages, see the Build an App with CockroachDB tutorials.

Required privileges

No privileges are required to modify the session settings.

Synopsis

Note:
The SET statement for session settings is unrelated to the other SET TRANSACTION and SET CLUSTER SETTING statements.

Parameters

The SET <session variable> statement accepts two parameters: thevariable name and the value to use to modify the variable.

The variable name is case insensitive. The value can be a list of one or more items. For example, the variable search_path is multi-valued.

Supported variables

Special syntax cases:

Examples

Set simple variables

The following demonstrates how SET can be used to configure thedefault database for the current session:

> SET database = bank;

> SHOW database;

+----------+
| database |
+----------+
| bank     |
+----------+
(1 row)

Set variables to values containing spaces

The following demonstrates how to use quoting to use values containing spaces:

> SET database = "database name with spaces";

> SHOW database;

+---------------------------+
|         database          |
+---------------------------+
| database name with spaces |
+---------------------------+
(1 row)

Set variables to a list of values

The following demonstrates how to assign a list of values:

> SET search_path = pg_catalog,public;

> SHOW search_path;

+---------------------------+
|        search_path        |
+---------------------------+
| pg_catalog, public        |
+---------------------------+
(1 row)

Reset a variable to its default value

Tip:
You can use RESET to reset a session variable as well.

> SHOW search_path;

+-------------+
| search_path |
+-------------+
| public      |
+-------------+
(1 row)

> SET search_path = 'app';

> SHOW search_path;

+-------------+
| search_path |
+-------------+
| app         |
+-------------+
(1 row)

> SET search_path = DEFAULT;

> SHOW search_path;

+-------------+
| search_path |
+-------------+
| public      |
+-------------+
(1 row)

SET TIME ZONE

Warning:
As a best practice, we recommend not using this setting and avoid setting a session time for your database. We instead recommend converting UTC values to the appropriate time zone on the client side.

You can control your client's default time zone for the current session with SET TIME ZONE. This will apply a session offset to all TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE values.

Note:
With setting SET TIME ZONE, CockroachDB uses UTC as the default time zone.

Parameters

The time zone value indicates the time zone for the current session.

This value can be a string representation of a local system-definedtime zone (e.g., 'EST', 'America/New_York') or a positive ornegative numeric offset from UTC (e.g., -7, +7). Also, DEFAULT,LOCAL, or 0 sets the session time zone to UTC.

Example: Set the default time zone via SET TIME ZONE

> SET TIME ZONE 'EST'; -- same as SET "timezone" = 'EST'

> SHOW TIME ZONE;

+-----------+
| time zone |
+-----------+
| EST       |
+-----------+
(1 row)

> SET TIME ZONE DEFAULT; -- same as SET "timezone" = DEFAULT

> SHOW TIME ZONE;

+-----------+
| time zone |
+-----------+
| UTC       |
+-----------+
(1 row)

SET TRACING

SET TRACING changes the trace recording state of the current session. A trace recording can be inspected with the SHOW TRACE FOR SESSION statement.

See also

• RESET
• SET TRANSACTION
• SET CLUSTER SETTING
• SHOW (session variable)
• The TIMESTAMP and TIMESTAMPTZ data types.
• SHOW TRACE FOR SESSION

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