Supongamos que ha construido una consulta con Joomla.
// Get a db connection.
$db = JFactory::getDbo();
// Create a new query object.
$query = $db->getQuery(true);
// Select all records from the user profile table where key begins with "custom.".
// Order it by the ordering field.
$query->select($db->quoteName(array('user_id', 'profile_key', 'profile_value', 'ordering')));
$query->from($db->quoteName('#__user_profiles'));
$query->where($db->quoteName('profile_key') . ' LIKE '. $db->quote('\'custom.%\''));
$query->order('ordering ASC');
// Reset the query using our newly populated query object.
$db->setQuery($query);
// Load the results as a list of stdClass objects (see later for more options on retrieving data).
$results = $db->loadObjectList();
Ejemplo desde aquí: https://docs.joomla.org/Selecting_data_using_JDatabase
¿Existe un comando para imprimir la declaración de consulta (no los resultados sino el SQL real)?