:_mod-docs-content-type: REFERENCE

// Module included in the following assemblies:
//
// assembly-distributed tracing.adoc

[id='ref-tracing-span-names-{context}']
= Specifying custom span names for OpenTelemetry

[role="_abstract"]
A tracing __span__ is a logical unit of work in Jaeger, with an operation name, start time, and duration. 
Spans have built-in names, but you can specify custom span names in your Kafka client instrumentation where used. 

Specifying custom span names is optional and only applies when using a decorator pattern xref:proc-instrumenting-producers-consumers-for-tracing-{context}[in producer and consumer client instrumentation] or xref:proc-instrumenting-kafka-streams-with-tracers-{context}[Kafka Streams instrumentation].

Custom span names cannot be specified directly with OpenTelemetry.
Instead, you retrieve span names by adding code to your client application to extract additional tags and attributes.

.Example code to extract attributes
[source,java,subs=attributes+]
----
//Defines attribute extraction for a producer
private static class ProducerAttribExtractor implements AttributesExtractor < ProducerRecord < ? , ? > , Void > {
    @Override
    public void onStart(AttributesBuilder attributes, ProducerRecord < ? , ? > producerRecord) {
        set(attributes, AttributeKey.stringKey("prod_start"), "prod1");
    }
    @Override
    public void onEnd(AttributesBuilder attributes, ProducerRecord < ? , ? > producerRecord, @Nullable Void unused, @Nullable Throwable error) {
        set(attributes, AttributeKey.stringKey("prod_end"), "prod2");
    }
}
//Defines attribute extraction for a consumer
private static class ConsumerAttribExtractor implements AttributesExtractor < ConsumerRecord < ? , ? > , Void > {
    @Override
    public void onStart(AttributesBuilder attributes, ConsumerRecord < ? , ? > producerRecord) {
        set(attributes, AttributeKey.stringKey("con_start"), "con1");
    }
    @Override
    public void onEnd(AttributesBuilder attributes, ConsumerRecord < ? , ? > producerRecord, @Nullable Void unused, @Nullable Throwable error) {
        set(attributes, AttributeKey.stringKey("con_end"), "con2");
    }
}
//Extracts the attributes
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        Map < String, Object > configs = new HashMap < > (Collections.singletonMap(ProducerConfig.BOOTSTRAP_SERVERS_CONFIG, "localhost:9092"));
        System.setProperty("otel.traces.exporter", "jaeger");
        System.setProperty("otel.service.name", "myapp1");
        KafkaTracing tracing = KafkaTracing.newBuilder(GlobalOpenTelemetry.get())
            .addProducerAttributesExtractors(new ProducerAttribExtractor())
            .addConsumerAttributesExtractors(new ConsumerAttribExtractor())
            .build();
----