Data Types

Snowflake supports most basic SQL data types (with some restrictions) for use in columns, local variables, expressions, parameters, and any other appropriate/suitable locations.

Applies to

• SQL Server

• Azure Synapse Analytics

Exact and approximate numerics

T-SQL	Snowflake	Notes
BIGINT	BIGINT	​Note that BIGINT in Snowflake is an alias for NUMBER(38,0) [See note on this conversion below.]
BIT	BOOLEAN	SQLServer only accepts ​1, 0, or NULL
DECIMAL	DECIMAL	​Snowflake's DECIMAL is synonymous with NUMBER
FLOAT	FLOAT	​This data type behaves equally on both systems. Precision 7-15 digits, float (1-24) Storage 4 - 8 bytes, float (25-53)
INT	INT	Note that INT in Snowflake is an alias for NUMBER(38,0) [See note on this conversion below.]
MONEY	NUMBER(38, 4)	[See note on this conversion below.]
REAL​	REAL	Snowflake's REAL is synonymous with FLOAT
SMALLINT	SMALLINT​	​This data type behaves equally
SMALLMONEY	NUMBER(38, 4)	[See note on this conversion below.]
TINYINT​	TINYINT	Note that TINYINT in Snowflake is an alias for NUMBER(38,0) [See note on this conversion below.]
NUMERIC	NUMERIC	​Snowflake's NUMERIC is synonymous with NUMBER

NOTE:

• For the conversion of integer data types (INT, SMALLINT, BIGINT, TINYINT), each is converted to the alias in Snowflake with the same name. Each of those aliases is actually converted to NUMBER(38,0), a data type that is considerably larger than the integer datatype. Below is a comparison of the range of values that can be present in each data type:

  • Snowflake NUMBER(38,0): -99999999999999999999999999999999999999 to +99999999999999999999999999999999999999

  • SQLServer TINYINT: 0 to 255

  • SQLServer INT: -2^31 (-2,147,483,648) to 2^31-1 (2,147,483,647)

  • SQLServer BIGINT: -2^63 (-9,223,372,036,854,775,808) to 2^63-1 (9,223,372,036,854,775,807)

  • SQLServer SMALLINT: -2^15 (-32,768) to 2^15-1 (32,767)

• For Money and Smallmoney: ​

  • Currency or monetary data does not need to be enclosed in single quotation marks ( ' ). It is important to remember that while you can specify monetary values preceded by a currency symbol, SQL Server does not store any currency information associated with the symbol, it only stores the numeric value.

  • Please take care on the translations for the DMLs

Date and time

T-SQL	Snowflake	Notes
DATE	DATE	​SQLServer accepts range from 0001-01-01 to 9999-12-31
DATETIME2	TIMESTAMP_NTZ(7)​	Snowflake's DATETIME is an alias for TIMESTAMP_NTZ
DATETIME	TIMESTAMP_NTZ(3)	Snowflake's DATETIME is an alias for TIMESTAMP_NTZ​
DATETIMEOFFSET	TIMESTAMP_TZ(7)	Snowflake's timestamp precision ranges from 0 to 9 (this value's the default) Snowflake's operations are performed in the current session's time zone, controlled by the TIMEZONE session parameter
SMALLDATETIME	TIMESTAMP_NTZ	Snowflake's DATETIME truncates the TIME information i.e. 1955-12-13 12:43:10 is saved as 1955-12-13
TIME	TIME	​This data type behaves equally on both systems. Range 00:00:00.0000000 through 23:59:59.9999999
TIMESTAMP	TIMESTAMP	This is an user defined data type in TSQL so it's converted to it's equivalent in snowflake Timestamp.

Character strings

T-SQL	Snowflake	Notes
CHAR	CHAR	​SQLServer's max string size in bytes is 8000 whereas Snowflake is 167772161.
TEXT​	TEXT
VARCHAR​	VARCHAR	SQLServer's max string size in bytes is 8000 whereas Snowflake is 167772161. SQLServer's VARCHAR(MAX) has no equivalent in SnowFlake, it is converted to VARCHAR to take the largest possible size by default.

Unicode character strings

T-SQL	Snowflake	Notes
NCHAR	NCHAR	Synonymous with VARCHAR except default length is VARCHAR(1).
NTEXT	TEXT	Snowflake use TEXT data type as a synonymous with VARCHAR ​SQLServer's NTEXT(MAX) has no equivalent in SnowFlake, it is converted to VARCHAR to take the largest possible size by default.
NVARCHAR	VARCHAR	Snowflake use this data type as a synonymous with VARCHAR ​SQLServer's NVARCHAR(MAX) has no equivalent in SnowFlake, it is converted to VARCHAR to take the largest possible size by default.

Binary strings

T-SQL	Snowflake	Notes
BINARY	​BINARY	In Snowflake the maximum length is 8 MB (8,388,608 bytes) and length is always measured in terms of bytes.
VARBINARY	VARBINARY	Snowflake use this data type as a synonymous with BINARY. Snowflake often represents each byte as 2 hexadecimal characters
IMAGE	VARBINARY	​Snowflake use this data type as a synonymous with BINARY. Snowflake often represents each byte as 2 hexadecimal characters

Other data types

T-SQL	Snowflake	Notes
CURSOR	*to be defined	Not supported by Snowflake. Translate into Cursor helpers
HIERARCHYID	*to be defined	Not supported by Snowflake
SQL_VARIANT	VARIANT	Maximum size of 16 MB compressed. A value of any data type can be implicitly cast to a VARIANT value
GEOMETRY	*to be defined	Not supported by Snowflake
GEOGRAPHY	GEOGRAPHY	The objects store in Snowflake's GEOGRAPHY data type must be WKT / WKB / EWKT / EWKB / GeoJSON geospatial objects to support LineString and Polygon objects
TABLE	*to be defined	Not supported by Snowflake
ROWVERSION	*to be defined	Not supported by Snowflake
UNIQUEIDENTIFIER	VARCHAR	​​Snowflake use STRING type as a synonymous with VARCHAR. Because of conversion Snowflake often represents each byte as 2 hexadecimal characters
XML	VARIANT	​Snowflake use VARIANT data type as a synonymous with XML
SYSNAME	VARCHAR(128)	NOT NULL constraint added to the column definition