A number of environment variables can be used to configure the behavior of the library. There are also functions to configure this behavior in code. The environment variables are convenient when troubleshooting problems.
Endpoint Overrides
GOOGLE_CLOUD_CPP_SPANNER_DEFAULT_ENDPOINT=...: changes the default endpoint (spanner.googleapis.com) for the library. Intended for testing only.
SPANNER_EMULATOR_HOST=host:port: tells the library to connect to the specified emulator rather than the default endpoint. Intended for testing only.
GOOGLE_CLOUD_CPP_ENABLE_TRACING=rpc: turns on tracing for most gRPC calls. The library injects an additional Stub decorator that prints each gRPC request and response. Unless you have configured your own logging backend, you should also set GOOGLE_CLOUD_CPP_ENABLE_CLOG to produce any output on the program's console.
See Also
google::cloud::LoggingComponentsOptionGOOGLE_CLOUD_CPP_TRACING_OPTIONS=...: modifies the behavior of gRPC tracing, including whether messages will be output on multiple lines, or whether string/bytes fields will be truncated.
See Also
google::cloud::GrpcTracingOptionsOptionGOOGLE_CLOUD_CPP_ENABLE_CLOG=yes: turns on logging in the library, basically the library always "logs" but the logging infrastructure has no backend to actually print anything until the application sets a backend or they set this environment variable.
GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT=...: is used in examples and integration tests to configure the GCP project. This has no effect in the library.
GOOGLE_CLOUD_CPP_SPANNER_TEST_INSTANCE_ID=... is used in examples and integration tests to, well, configure the spanner instance. This has no effect in the library.
GOOGLE_CLOUD_CPP_SPANNER_TEST_SERVICE_ACCOUNT=...: is used in examples and integration tests to set the service account for testing IAM operations. This has no effect in the library.
[[["Easy to understand","easyToUnderstand","thumb-up"],["Solved my problem","solvedMyProblem","thumb-up"],["Other","otherUp","thumb-up"]],[["Missing the information I need","missingTheInformationINeed","thumb-down"],["Too complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-08-22 UTC."],[[["\u003cp\u003eThis page details environment variables that can configure the behavior of the Spanner C++ client library, along with links to relevant documentation for further details.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe library allows for endpoint overrides via environment variables such as \u003ccode\u003eGOOGLE_CLOUD_CPP_SPANNER_DEFAULT_ENDPOINT\u003c/code\u003e and \u003ccode\u003eSPANNER_EMULATOR_HOST\u003c/code\u003e, which are primarily used for testing purposes.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThe default behavior of the library can be modified using variables like \u003ccode\u003eSPANNER_OPTIMIZER_VERSION\u003c/code\u003e and \u003ccode\u003eSPANNER_OPTIMIZER_STATISTICS_PACKAGE\u003c/code\u003e, specifically affecting the query optimizer's actions.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eLogging and tracing for gRPC calls can be enabled and configured through environment variables like \u003ccode\u003eGOOGLE_CLOUD_CPP_ENABLE_TRACING\u003c/code\u003e, \u003ccode\u003eGOOGLE_CLOUD_CPP_TRACING_OPTIONS\u003c/code\u003e, and \u003ccode\u003eGOOGLE_CLOUD_CPP_ENABLE_CLOG\u003c/code\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eThis document also lists a log of the available version releases, with \u003ccode\u003e2.37.0-rc\u003c/code\u003e being the latest and \u003ccode\u003e2.11.0\u003c/code\u003e being the oldest in the list.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],[],null,[]]
