SOL-C01 Online Practice Questions

Explanation:
The SELECT * statement instructs Snowflake to return all columns from the referenced table or view. This is commonly used during data exploration, debugging, initial data profiling, and validation steps. It allows users to quickly view the complete dataset structure without manually specifying each column name.
However, while SELECT * retrieves all columns, it does not limit the number of rows. To restrict rows, developers must include a LIMIT clause (e.g., SELECT * FROM table LIMIT 10;).
The query does not automatically apply DISTINCT or primary key filtering―Snowflake returns all rows exactly as stored unless additional filtering, WHERE conditions, or ordering are provided.
Though SELECT * is convenient, Snowflake best practices recommend explicitly selecting columns in production workloads to optimize performance and avoid unnecessary scanning of unused fields.

Explanation:
The COPY INTO command supports loading structured and semi-structured data from various Snowflake stages. Supported file formats include CSV, JSON, Parquet, Avro, ORC, and others. Each format integrates with Snowflake’s file format definitions, enabling configuration for delimiters, compression, headers, and parsing rules.
CSV is widely used for tabular datasets and supports flexible parsing via FILE_FORMAT options such as FIELD_DELIMITER, SKIP_HEADER, and NULL_IF.
JSON is loaded natively into VARIANT columns, allowing nested structures to be queried immediately through path notation.
Parquet, a high-efficiency columnar format, is optimized for analytic workloads and provides excellent compression and schema evolution benefits.
XLS is not supported, as Snowflake does not support Excel spreadsheets directly. XLS/XLSX files must be converted to CSV or Parquet before loading.
The COPY INTO architecture ensures performant ingestion across multi-node compute clusters.

Explanation:
The correct SQL syntax to create a zero-copy clone of an existing table is:
CREATE TABLE MY_TABLE_CLONE CLONE MY_TABLE;
This command instantly creates a new table that references the same underlying micro-partitions as the original. Because of Snowflake’s metadata-only cloning, no storage is consumed at the time of creation. Storage only increases when either the original or the clone diverges through DML operations, following a copy-on-write model.
Cloning is available for multiple object types―tables, schemas, databases, stages, streams, tasks, and more. This capability enables rapid creation of development sandboxes, QA environments, rollback copies, or controlled experimentation without duplicating data.
Incorrect options:
“COPY TABLE” is not a valid Snowflake command.
BACKUP/RESTORE are not Snowflake SQL commands.
RESTORE applies only to Time Travel or Fail-safe, not to cloning.
Thus, the CLONE keyword is the only correct method for zero-copy duplication.

Explanation:
SECURITYADMIN manages identity and access control, including creating, modifying, and dropping users and roles.
USERADMIN manages users but lacks full privilege management capability.
SYSADMIN manages object creation.
ACCOUNTADMIN holds full administrative privileges but delegates user/role management to
SECURITYADMIN.

Explanation:
Snowflake is a fully cloud-native platform that supports deployment across all three major cloud providers: AWS, GCP, and Azure. Snowflake delivers consistent functionality across each provider, allowing organizations to choose the cloud best suited for regulatory, architectural, and business requirements. Although small feature differences may exist between cloud providers, Snowflake’s core capabilities―virtual warehouses, storage layers, security, data sharing, and governance― operate uniformly across all three platforms. This multi-cloud support gives Snowflake strong flexibility for hybrid, multi-region, and multi-cloud deployments.