Data Types

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

Exact and approximate numerics

Sybase	Snowflake	Notes
BIGINT	BIGINT	​Note that BIGINT in Snowflake is an alias for NUMBER(38,0) [See note on this conversion below.]
BIT	BOOLEAN	Sybase 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.]
SMALLINT	SMALLINT​	​This data type behaves equally
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:

• Each is converted to the alias in Snowflake with the same name for the conversion of integer data types (INT, SMALLINT, BIGINT, TINYINT). Each of those aliases is converted to NUMBER(38,0), a data type 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

  • Sybase TINYINT: 0 to 255

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

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

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

Date and time

Sybase	Snowflake	Notes
DATE	DATE	Sybase accepts range from 0001-01-01 to 9999-12-31
DATETIME	TIMESTAMP_NTZ(3)	Snowflake's DATETIME is an alias for TIMESTAMP_NTZ​
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

Character strings

Sybase	Snowflake	Notes
CHAR	CHAR	​Snowflake's max string size in bytes is 167772161.
TEXT​	TEXT
VARCHAR​	VARCHAR	Snowflake's max string size in bytes is 167772161.

Unicode character strings

Sybase	Snowflake	Notes
NCHAR	NCHAR	Synonymous with VARCHAR except default length is VARCHAR(1).
NTEXT	TEXT	NTEXT is an Sybase domain type, implemented as a LONG NVARCHAR.
NVARCHAR	VARCHAR	Snowflake's max string size in bytes is 167772161.

Binary strings

Sybase	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