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How to Print SQL Statements in Spring Boot Application Log File? Example Tutorial

Hello guys if you are working on a Spring Boot application which loads and save data from database but you are not sure which queries are run on backend and you want to see them then you have come to the right place. Earlier, I have showed you how to set logging level in Spring Boot and In this article we are going to have a look at another very interesting topic from Spring Boot on how to log SQL statements in spring boot app. I know you might be wondering why I’m calling a very boring topic an interesting one? A proper logging is among one of the features that sets intermediate or experienced developers apart from beginners. 

Logging helps a developer in many ways; adding proper log to their application helps in quickly troubleshooting the bugs or at least get an idea of, why your application is broken. It also helps in monitoring your app by checking the data because database entries frequently include details like the date a record was created, changed, or removed, as well as the person who carried out each activity.  

It is to note here that, software development is undoubtedly a process of iterative failure until you find the ideal solution to make an app function as intended. You may save time while adding the breakpoints and debugging to repair the fault by being able to rapidly review the most recent logs and get a sense of where the error is occurring.

So far we have highlighted the importance of logging and shared our opinions with you. Now it’s time to take a look at how can log SQL statements in our Spring Boot Project


2 ways to Print SQL Statements in Spring Boot application

 Here we mainly discuss two main ways to log SQL statements in spring app. These two methods are

1. Using standard output.

2. Via Loggers.

We will start our understanding using the first method i.e. using standard output. 


2. 1 Enable SQL logging in Spring Boot with standard output

This method recognizes as the easiest way to log SQL statements in the spring boot application. All you need to do is to write a few (below-mentioned) lines of code in the application.properties file.

spring.jpa.show-sql=true

To see it in action you need to run an SQL statement. In my case, I will run a simple insert statement on my Stadium table, and the application will show the following results.

Hibernate: 

insert into stadium (id, stadiumId, stadiumName, stadiumCapacity) values (?, ?, ?, ?)

One can access the above log from

/tomcat/logs/Catalina.out

As we can see from the above-logged query, the parameters are represented with a question mark (?) and their values are kept hidden for security reasons. 

With the addition of the below code, one can beautify the logged queries.

spring.jpa.properties.hibernate.format_sql=true


The above statement is helpful in case we have long and complex queries to be run against the database system. The net result after adding the above line will look like this.

Hibernate: 

insert 

into 

stadium 

(id, stadiumId, stadiumName, stadiumCapacity) 

values 

(?, ?, ?, ?)


Despite being a very simple and easy way to log the SQL statements, this is not the recommended way, because it throws everything directly to standard output without any optimizations or taking the help of a logging framework.

Furthermore, It doesn’t log the parameters of a prepared statement.


2.2  Using Loggers

The next in our row is to use Loggers API. Like standard output, it also helps to trace down the error that may occur during the execution of SQL statements. Unlike the previous method, this method logs the parameter values of a prepared statement. To configure this method, you need to update the application.properties file as shown below

logging.level.org.hibernate.SQL=DEBUG

logging.level.org.hibernate.type.descriptor.sql.BasicBinder=TRACE


The first statement logs the SQL queries, whereas the second statement logs the parameters of a prepared statement.

After adding the following two lines you will see the following logs.


2022–12–27 00:28:26.005 DEBUG 2041 — — [io-8080-exec-12] org.hibernate.SQL : insert into stadium (id, stadiumId, stadiumName, stadiumCapacity) values (?, ?, ?, ?)

20221227 00:28:26.039 TRACE 2041 — — [io-8080-exec-12] o.h.type.descriptor.sql.BasicBinder : binding parameter [1] as [BIGINT] — [1]

20221227 00:28:26.037 TRACE 2041 — — [io-8080-exec-12] o.h.type.descriptor.sql.BasicBinder : binding parameter [2] as [BIGINT] — [101]

20221227 00:28:26.037 TRACE 2041 — — [io-8080-exec-12] o.h.type.descriptor.sql.BasicBinder : binding parameter [3] as [VARCHAR] — [Lusail]

20221227 00:28:26.037 TRACE 2041 — — [io-8080-exec-12] o.h.type.descriptor.sql.BasicBinder : binding parameter [4] as [BIGINT] — [88966]



How Does SQL logging work in Spring Boot?

If you are wondering where this code for logging is coming from? The answer to this question is Spring/Hibernate classes are responsible for generating the SQL statements.

What to avoid?

While using Logging framework one must avoid writing the below code in application.properties file

spring.jpa.show-sql=true

The issue with the above statement is that it prints SQL statements directly in the console window without filtering them, contrary to a Logging framework.

How to log SQL Statements in Spring Boot Application


That's all about how to log SQL statement in Spring Boot application. We finally reach the ending note of our article, I hope this article has helped you understand the value of logging in software development and how SQL statement logging be achieved in our spring boot project

Logging SQL statements directly in your console window tells you which statements were executed by your application and will ultimately save developers time in debugging the errors that may occur during the development lifecycle. 

I appreciate you taking the time. You should now be able to log SQL statements using a spring boot app, I hope this article has taught you the logging skills using Spring Boot. Even if this article didn’t convince you, I still hope you may have found this post to be interesting and full of information.

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Thanks for reading this article so far. If you found this Java + Spring Boot + REST + HTTP Request timeout Tutorial useful and helpful then please share them with your colleagues and friends. If you have any questions or feedback then please drop a note. 

P. S. - If you are keen to learn about REST API and Microservice but new to this field and looking for free online courses then you can also checkout this list of the 5 best Microservice courses for beginners. In this post you will find free Microservice courses from Udemy, Coursera, and YouTube. 

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