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.

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

PreviousDropsNextStatements

Last updated