RQL

Rollbar Query Language (RQL) provides a rich SQL-like interface to the data in Rollbar. RQL is bundled with Rollbar Analyze, which also includes the Metrics API and is only available to our Advanced and Enterprise packages.

RQL supports running SELECT queries on two logical tables, item_occurrence and deploy. Basic GROUP BY, ORDER BY, LIMIT, and aggregation functions are available, as are arbitrary expressions in the WHERE clause.

Syntax

SELECT and FROM are required. WHERE, GROUP BY, ORDER BY, and LIMIT are optional.

SELECT * may be used as long as there is no GROUP BY clause. It will return a list of columns similar to the Occurrences tab on the Item Detail pages.

You can reference a selected column using its index, e.g. GROUP BY 1.

SQL keywords and built-in function names are case-insensitive (i.e. SELECT and select are both fine).

Column names should start with a lowercase letter and may contain letters, numbers, and periods (for specifying a JSON path). If you need any other characters (i.e. a hyphen, or to start with an uppercase letter), escape with backticks (i.e. request.headers.User-Agent).

Operators

• +, -, /, *, DIV, MOD
• AND, OR, NOT
• =, !=,
  <>, >, >=, <, <=, IN, NOT IN, BETWEEN,
  NOT BETWEEN, LIKE, NOT LIKE, IS, IS NOT

Built-in Functions

• count(*): counts all rows
• count(foo): counts rows where foo is not NULL
• count_distinct(foo): counts distinct rows where foo is not NULL
• sum(foo): sums the value of foo (for rows where foo is not NULL)
• avg(foo): average value of foo (for rows where foo is not NULL)
• min(foo): minimum value of foo
• max(foo): maximum value of foo
• unix_timestamp(): returns the current Unix timestamp, as an integer
• concat(str1, str2, ...): returns the string resulting from concatenating all arguments
• concat_ws(sep, str1, str2, ...): returns the string resulting from concatenating the second argument and beyond, separated by the first argument
• lower(str): converts str to lowercase
• upper(str): converts str to uppercase
• left(str, len): returns the len leftmost characters of str
• right(str, len): returns the len rightmost characters of str
• substring(str, pos): returns the substring from str starting at pos (all characters from pos until the end)
• substring(str, pos, len): returns a substring from str starting at pos, at most len characters
• locate(substr, str): returns the position of the first occurrence of substr in str. (1-indexed)
• locate(substr, str, pos): returns the position of the first occurrence of substr in str, starting the search at position pos
• char_length(str): returns the length of str in characters
• length(str): returns the length of str in bytes
• if(boolean_expr, value_if_true, value_if_false): evaluates to value_if_true if the expression boolean_expr evalutes to true, value_if_false otherwise

Performance considerations

RQL queries data from multiple databases and assembles the result set at the end. To optimize performance we moved the most frequently queried columns to a faster database. You can expect faster results in case your query uses the following columns only.

For further performance improvement, we suggest querying the necessary columns only and applying item (e.g., WHERE item.counter = 123) or timestamp (e.g., WHERE timestamp > unix_timestamp() - 86400) filters in each query.

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Although RQL supports all operations and functions listed above, you might experience slowness when using the GROUP BY statement.

Templates and Examples

To get great examples of RQL queries, we have included a tabbed section called Template. These are our top 3 queries for finding occurrence trends, filtering items, and the impact of errors. By clicking on the template, we will automatically fill in your RQL code editor and allow you to change factors like time stamps or item counters to personalize your query to your needs.

If you need more examples of RQL, here are eight more advanced samples to help you learn RQL.

To find all occurrences of item #47, grouped by request.user_ip with the total count, earliest timestamp, and most recent timestamp, ordered by total count descending and limited to the top 10 rows:

SELECT request.user_ip, min(timestamp), max(timestamp), count(*)
FROM item_occurrence
WHERE item.counter = 47
GROUP BY request.user_ip
ORDER BY count(*) DESC
LIMIT 10

To see the timestamp and message for all occurrences for Items #40 to #50:

SELECT timestamp, body.message.body
FROM item_occurrence
WHERE item.counter BETWEEN 40 AND 50

To see the occurrences of Items #1, 2, and 3:

SELECT *
FROM item_occurrence
WHERE item.counter IN (1,2,3)

To find items that affected the most IPs in the last 3 days, grouped by the item number and ordered by the distinct count of the number of user_ips descending:

SELECT item.counter
FROM item_occurrence
WHERE timestamp > unix_timestamp() - 60 * 60 * 24 * 3
GROUP BY item.counter
ORDER BY count_distinct(request.user_ip) desc

To see all the items with the User-Agent string python-requests/2.9.1 in a date range, ordered by timestamps descending:

SELECT * 
FROM item_occurrence 
WHERE `request.headers.User-Agent` = "python-requests/2.9.1"  
AND timestamp BETWEEN 1507566716 and 1510245116 
ORDER BY timestamp desc

To grab all the referrer domains Item #1234 came from, grouped by the domain and limited to the top 1000 rows:

SELECT substring(request.headers.Referer, locate('.', request.headers.Referer), locate('.', request.headers.Referer, locate('.', request.headers.Referer)) - locate('.', request.headers.Referer) - 1)
FROM item_occurrence
WHERE item.counter = 1234
GROUP BY 1
LIMIT 1000

To find all the occurrences of items that occurred on Safari version 9.x on the last day:

SELECT *
FROM item_occurrence
WHERE client.javascript.browser LIKE '%Version/9.%.% Safari/%'
AND timestamp > unix_timestamp() - 60 * 60 * 24

To grab the occurrence counts per item per day for the last three days:

SELECT timestamp div 86400, item.counter, count(*)
FROM item_occurrence
WHERE timestamp > unix_timestamp() - 60 * 60 * 24 * 3
GROUP BY 1, item.counter

Good to know

• RQL sometimes timeout unless you put a date range, such as WHERE timestamp > unix_timestamp() - 86400.
• When using GROUP BY or ORDER BY, ensure the group/order clause is also present in the SELECT clause.
• You cannot GROUP BY a function unless the same expression is in the SELECT clause.
• You can reference a column by its index in a GROUP BY statement, for example GROUP BY 1.
• You can share the URL with a co-worker and they'll see the same results you do, without rerunning the query.
• After a query has been completed, press Execute again to re-run it.

Limitations

• At most 1000 rows will be returned per query (though any number of rows may be examined)
• DISTINCT, HAVING, subqueries, joins, or unions are unsupported
• ANY, ALL, and EXISTS clauses are unsupported
• SELECT * cannot be combined with GROUP BY
• You cannot GROUP BY a function unless the same expression is in the SELECT clause.
• You cannot run more than 2 RQL queries in parallel per account
• Querying more than 200K occurrences typically does not work. It may be useful to narrow your query by timestamp or item.counter to stay under the 200K threshold. For example:
• Filter by day: WHERE unix_timestamp() - timestamp BETWEEN 60 * 60 * 24 * 0 and 60 * 60 * 24 * 1
• Filter by hour: WHERE unix_timestamp() - timestamp BETWEEN 60 * 60 * 0 and 60 * 60 * 1
• Filter by item.counter: WHERE item.counter = 800
• Timeouts occur at 10 minutes of the RQL job running.

Schema

item_occurrence

item_occurrence is a table where each row contains data for a single occurrence and the item it is associated with. Column names starting with "item." reference the item, and all other column names reference the occurrence. Column names that do not exist in a particular occurrence evaluate to NULL.

The following columns exist for every row in item_occurrence:

Many virtual columns will also exist, depending on which Rollbar SDK you use and what custom data you send. Simply use the JSON path to the field you want to query. To see the JSON structure of one of your occurrences, click the "Raw JSON" button on an Occurrence page. The structure will follow the Rollbar API Item Schema.

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When querying a virtual column, make sure to wrap it in backticks, e.g.

`request.headers.User-Agent`="python-requests/2.9.1"  

Here are some common column names, all of which refer to data for the occurrence:

deploy

deploy is a table where each row represents a single deploy. It contains the following columns:

Constants

Framework IDs

The item.framework property is an integer value that maps as follows:

    'unknown': 0,
    'rails': 1,
    'django': 2,
    'pyramid': 3,
    'node-js': 4,
    'pylons': 5,
    'php': 6,
    'browser-js': 7,
    'rollbar-system': 8,  # system messages, like "over rate limit"
    'android': 9,
    'ios': 10,
    'mailgun': 11,
    'logentries': 12,
    'python': 13,
    'ruby': 14,
    'sidekiq': 15,
    'flask': 16,
    'celery': 17,
    'rq': 18,
    'java': 19,
    'dotnet': 20,
    'go': 21,
    'react-native': 22,
    'macos': 23,
    'apex': 24,
    'spring': 25,
    'bottle': 26,
    'twisted': 27,
    'asgi': 28,
    'starlette': 29,
    'fastapi': 30,
    'karafka': 31,
    'flutter': 32,

Platform IDs

The item.platform property is an integer value which maps as follows:

    'unknown': 0,
    'browser': 1,
    'flash': 2,
    'android': 3,
    'ios': 4,
    'heroku': 5,
    'google-app-engine': 6,
    'client': 7,

Handling RQL Jobs

When users submit a query, we initiate a specialized job to handle it. This approach is particularly beneficial for queries that might take longer to process. By creating a job, users can navigate away and return later to retrieve the results without being bound to await the query's completion in real-time or share the URL with a team member so they can view the query results without having to re-run the query. Note Jobs will timeout after 10 minutes of running. Please review our performance consideration to reduce your query runtime.

These RQL jobs can be identified and tracked through specific URL query parameters: prj represents the project ID, and jobId is used for the unique RQL job ID. These parameters ensure that users can quickly locate and manage their queries.

It's essential to note that these jobs, queries, and results are stored for seven days. After this duration, the query and its corresponding results are purged from the system. However, a job record remains, marked with a status of Deleted, serving as a historical trail for auditing or review purposes.

In addition, RQL jobs are also available via a dedicated endpoint in the Rollbar API. This feature provides an additional layer of convenience for working programmatically. Here is a cURL example on how to create an RQL request:

curl --location 'https://api.rollbar.com/api/1/rql/jobs/' \
--header 'X-Rollbar-Access-Token: ACCOUNT_READ_TOKEN' \
--form 'query_string=" SELECT *  
      FROM item_occurrence
      WHERE item.counter = 1
      ORDER BY timestamp DESC"'

This returns a job ID which you can use in the Job Results endpoint . Here is a cURL example on how to retrieve the results with an RQL job ID of 102914452:

curl --location 'https://api.rollbar.com/api/1/rql/job/102914452/result' \
--header 'X-Rollbar-Access-Token: ACCOUNT_READ_TOKEN'

You can then retrieve

AI Assistant

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This is an experimental feature

Data Access Agreement

Since our AI assistant uses OpenAI's services, an account owner must accept our 3rd party data agreement in the account settings. This agreement states that you understand anything you put into the prompt will be sent to OpenAI's API. For accounts still needing approval, there are prompts on the AI Assistant for both team members and owners.

Rollbar will not send PII, project names, or item information to OpenAI.

Using the AI Assistant.

Using the AI Assistant is easy. Input your natural question into the input box and click the "Generate RQL" button. The AI Assistant will return your query to the RQL query code editor. This gives you the ability to edit your query to fit your needs. When you are ready to submit your query, please select your project and click the "Run RQL" button under the code editors.

Limits

During our experimental phase of the AI Assistant, we will be limiting accounts to 50 AI prompts per calendar month. AI Assistant is only available to Advanced accounts. For Enterprise accounts, please contact your Account Manager for access at no additional cost to your contract.

Exporting RQL results

RQL results can be exported as a comma-separated values (CSV) file for use in other tools and systems to help you generate reports.