Documentation

Query a Distinct Value Cache

Use the distinct_cache() SQL function in the FROM clause of an SQL SELECT statement to query data from the Distinct Value Cache (DVC).

You must use SQL to query the DVC. InfluxQL does not support the distinct_cache() function.

distinct_cache() supports the following arguments:

  • table_name: (Required) The name of the table the DVC is associated with formatted as a string literal.
  • cache_name: The name of the DVC to query formatted as a string literal. This argument is only required if there is more than one DVC associated with the specified table.
SELECT * FROM distinct_cache('table_name', 'cache_name')

You can use other SQL clauses to modify query results. For example, you can use the WHERE clause to return the distinct tag values associated with another distinct tag value:

SELECT
  city
FROM
  distinct_cache('wind_data', 'windDistinctCache')
WHERE
  country = 'Spain'

Use the HTTP API

To use the HTTP API to query cached data, send a GET or POST request to the /api/v3/query_sql endpoint and include the distinct_cache() function in your query.

GET /api/v3/query_sql
POST /api/v3/query_sql
curl -X POST "https://localhost:8181/api/v3/query_sql" \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer 
AUTH_TOKEN
"
\
--json '{ "db": "
DATABASE_NAME
",
"q": "SELECT * FROM distinct_cache('\''
TABLE_NAME
'
\'', '\''
CACHE_NAME
'
\'')",
"format": "json" }'

Example with WHERE clause

curl -X POST "https://localhost:8181/api/v3/query_sql" \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer 00xoXX0xXXx0000XxxxXx0Xx0xx0" \
  --json '{
    "db": "example-db",
    "q": "SELECT room, temp FROM last_cache('\''home'\'', '\''homeCache'\'') WHERE room = '\''Kitchen'\''",
    "format": "json"
  }'

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New in InfluxDB 3.5

Key enhancements in InfluxDB 3.5 and the InfluxDB 3 Explorer 1.3.

See the Blog Post

InfluxDB 3.5 is now available for both Core and Enterprise, introducing custom plugin repository support, enhanced operational visibility with queryable CLI parameters and manual node management, stronger security controls, and general performance improvements.

InfluxDB 3 Explorer 1.3 brings powerful new capabilities including Dashboards (beta) for saving and organizing your favorite queries, and cache querying for instant access to Last Value and Distinct Value caches—making Explorer a more comprehensive workspace for time series monitoring and analysis.

For more information, check out:

InfluxDB Docker latest tag changing to InfluxDB 3 Core

On November 3, 2025, the latest tag for InfluxDB Docker images will point to InfluxDB 3 Core. To avoid unexpected upgrades, use specific version tags in your Docker deployments.

If using Docker to install and run InfluxDB, the latest tag will point to InfluxDB 3 Core. To avoid unexpected upgrades, use specific version tags in your Docker deployments. For example, if using Docker to run InfluxDB v2, replace the latest version tag with a specific version tag in your Docker pull command–for example:

docker pull influxdb:2