Use the influxctl CLI to query data

Use the influxctl query command to query data in InfluxDB Clustered with SQL or InfluxQL.

Provide the following with your command:

Database token: A database token with read permissions on the queried database. By default, this uses the database setting from the influxctl connection profile or the --token command flag.
Database name: The name of the database to query. By default, this uses the database setting from the influxctl connection profile or the --database command flag.
Query language (Optional): The query language of the query. Use the --language flag to specify one of the following query languages:
- sql (default)
- influxql
Query: SQL or InfluxQL query to execute. Pass the query in one of the following ways:
- a string on the command line
- a path to a file that contains the query
- a single dash (-) to read the query from stdin

influxctl query \
  --token DATABASE_TOKEN
\
  --database DATABASE_NAME
\
  "SELECT * FROM home"

  
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influxctl query \
  --token DATABASE_TOKEN
\
  --database DATABASE_NAME
\
  /path/to/query.sql

  
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cat ./query.sql | influxctl query \
  --token DATABASE_TOKEN
\
  --database DATABASE_NAME
\
  - 

  
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string file stdin

influxctl query \
  --token DATABASE_TOKEN
\
  --database DATABASE_NAME
\
  --language influxql \
  "SELECT * FROM home"

  
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influxctl query \
  --token DATABASE_TOKEN
\
  --database DATABASE_NAME
\
  --language influxql \
  /path/to/query.influxql

  
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cat ./query.influxql | influxctl query \
  --token DATABASE_TOKEN
\
  --database DATABASE_NAME
\
  --language influxql \
  - 

  
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Replace the following:

DATABASE_TOKEN: Database token with read access to the queried database
DATABASE_NAME: Name of the database to query

Output format

The influxctl query command supports the following output formats:

table (default)
json

Use the --format flag to specify the output format:

influxctl query \
  --format json \
  "SELECT * FROM home WHERE time >= '2025-04-28T08:00:00Z' LIMIT 5"

  
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View example table-formatted results

View example JSON-formatted results

Timestamp format

When using the table output format, you can specify which of the following timestamp formats to use to display timestamp values in the query results:

rfc3339nano: (Default) RFC3339Nano-formatted timestamp–for example: 2024-01-01T00:00:00.000000000Z
unixnano: Unix nanosecond timestamp

influxctl query \
  --time-format unixnano \
  "SELECT * FROM home WHERE time >= '2025-04-28T08:00:00Z' LIMIT 5"

  
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View example results with unix nanosecond timestamps

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Use the influxctl CLI to query data

Output format

Timestamp format

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Use the influxctl CLI to query data

Output format

Timestamp format

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