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Elastic Docs › ›Event Types

Spans

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Spans

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A span contains information about a specific code path, executed as part of a transaction. Every span is identified by an unique ID per transaction.

Elastic APM agents automatically instrument a variety of libraries, but also support custom instrumentation for code paths.

Every code path that is captured by an agent creates a span. Spans at least collect information about when the code path execution started, the duration, and the type of the code path execution.

This means, if for example a database query happens within a recorded transaction, a span representing this database query will be created. In such a case the name of the span will contain information about the query itself, and the type will hold information about the database type.

Some of the key attributes of a span are described in more detail:

Context

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In case a database query was captured, the span’s context contains information about this database access. The context also contains information about the service the agent is monitoring.

Span

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The information available within the span group includes the duration of the recorded span, a unique ID within a transaction and an automatically retrieved name. Additionally a span can contain stack trace information.

Example document

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{
    "context": {
        "db": {
            "instance": "customers",
            "statement": "SELECT * FROM product_types WHERE user_id=?",
            "type": "sql",
            "user": "readonly_user"
        },
        "service": {
            "agent": {
                "name": "elastic-node",
                "version": "3.14.0"
            },
            "name": "1234_service-12a3"
        }
    },
    "processor": {
        "event": "span",
        "name": "transaction"
    },
    "span": {
        "duration": {
            "us": 3781
        },
        "id": 0,
        "name": "SELECT FROM product_types",
        "stacktrace": [
            {
                "abs_path": "net.js",
                "context": {
                    "post": [
                        "    ins.currentTransaction = prev",
                        "    return result",
                        "}"
                    ],
                    "pre": [
                        "  var trans = this.currentTransaction",
                        ""
                    ]
                },
                "exclude_from_grouping": false,
                "filename": "net.js",
                "function": "onread",
                "library_frame": true,
                "line": {
                    "column": 4,
                    "context": "line3",
                    "number": 547
                },
                "module": "some module",
                "vars": {
                    "key": "value"
                }
            },
            {
                "exclude_from_grouping": false,
                "filename": "my2file.js",
                "line": {
                    "number": 10
                }
            }
        ],
        "start": {
            "us": 2830
        },
        "type": "db.postgresql.query"
    },
    "transaction": {
        "id": "945254c5-67a5-417e-8a4e-aa29efcbfb79"
    }
}
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