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Specify Span ID creation with sampling. #998

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2 changes: 2 additions & 0 deletions CHANGELOG.md
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -83,6 +83,8 @@ Updates:
([#984](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-specification/pull/984)
- Metrics SDK: Specify TBD default aggregation for ValueRecorder
([#984](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-specification/pull/984)
- SDK: Specify when to generate new IDs with sampling
([#998](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-specification/pull/998))

## v0.6.0 (07-01-2020)

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23 changes: 18 additions & 5 deletions specification/trace/sdk.md
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -60,11 +60,24 @@ The following table summarizes the expected behavior for each combination of
The SDK defines the interface [`Sampler`](#sampler) as well as a set of
[built-in samplers](#built-in-samplers) and associates a `Sampler` with each [`TracerProvider`].

When asked to create a Span, the SDK MUST query the `Sampler`'s [`ShouldSample`](#shouldsample) method before actually creating the span, and act accordingly:
see description of [`ShouldSample`'s](#shouldsample) return value below for how to set `IsRecording` and `Sampled` on the Span,
and the [table above](#recording-sampled-reaction-table) on whether to pass the `Span` to `SpanProcessor`s.
A non-recording span MAY be implemented using the same mechanism as when a `Span` is created with no API-implementation installed
(sometimes called a `NoOpSpan` or `DefaultSpan`).
### SDK Span creation
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When asked to create a Span, the SDK MUST act as if doing the following in order:

1. If there is a valid parent trace ID, use it. Otherwise generate a new one (
note: this must be done before calling `ShouldSample`, because it expects
a valid trace Id as input).
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2. Query the `Sampler`'s [`ShouldSample`](#shouldsample) method.
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3. If the decision is `DROP`, use the parent span ID or all-zero if there is none.
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That means: If there is no parent and the decision is drop, we will have a span with the new trace ID but an invalid span ID. The SpanContext as a whole is thus invalid. We could also specify that the generated trace ID should be discarded in that case.

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Actually this may be worth re-considering: Generating trace+span ID for an unsampled root has implications if the span is injected. If we generate an invalid spancontext (with zero span ID), we will inject nothing as we have an invalid traceparent header as per W3C (cf. also #753). This causes downstream components to potentially create traces / run sampling logic that they would not if they got an incoming unsampled traceparent header.

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We could also specify that the generated trace ID should be discarded in that case.

I'd be fine with this.

we will inject nothing as we have an invalid traceparent header as per W3C (cf. also #753). This causes downstream components to potentially create traces

Could you elaborate?

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@carlosalberto We never inject an invalid SpanContext, at least using W3C. If we would generate a new ID instead of using zero, we would inject a valid spancontext with unset sampled flag. This will likely cause the receiver to suppress the trace. On the other hand, if we use zero, the downstream component will not receive any tracestate and will likely start a new trace.

Now that I write, this, I realize that this even applies to local child spans: Normally if the root span is not sampled, local child spans would be unsampled too, but with this they would become root spans.

This is bad. I think we will have to create Span and Trace ID even for "dropped" root spans after all. It seems there is a dependency of #864 "Option to allow "default" IDs for unsampled traces" on #753 "Current "Invalid" SpanContext definition precludes TraceState-only SpanContext". We would have to have some sentinel SpanContext that is "valid, unsampled, but without any IDs". That's out of scope here of course.

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Updated in 4006816. Maybe this demonstrates how easy it is to mess up here and that it is thus important to have this specified clearly? 😃

Otherwise (if the decision is not `DROP`) a new span ID MUST be generated.
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That means: RECORD_ONLY spans get a new span ID, always. I don't know what the purpose of RECORD_ONLY is (should we remove it?), but having different spans with the same trace+span ID seems worse than breaking the trace in case any children of the RECORD_ONLY span become RECORD_AND_SAMPLE .

4. Create a span depending on the decision returned by `ShouldSample`:
see description of [`ShouldSample`'s](#shouldsample) return value below
for how to set `IsRecording` and `Sampled` on the Span,
and the [table above](#recording-sampled-reaction-table) on whether
to pass the `Span` to `SpanProcessor`s.
A non-recording span MAY be implemented using the same mechanism as when a
`Span` is created with no API-implementation installed
(sometimes called a `NoOpSpan` or `DefaultSpan`).
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### Sampler

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