Snowflake Driver#

Available for: C/C++, GLib/Ruby, Go, Python, R

The Snowflake Driver provides access to Snowflake Database Warehouses.

Installation#

C/C++

For conda-forge users:

mamba install libadbc-driver-snowflake

go get github.com/apache/arrow-adbc/go/adbc/driver/snowflake

Python

# For conda-forge
mamba install adbc-driver-snowflake

# For pip
pip install adbc_driver_snowflake

# install.packages("pak")
pak::pak("apache/arrow-adbc/r/adbcsnowflake")

Usage#

To connect to a Snowflake database you can supply the “uri” parameter when constructing the :cpp:AdbcDatabase.

C++

#include "adbc.h"

// Ignoring error handling
struct AdbcDatabase database;
AdbcDatabaseNew(&database, nullptr);
AdbcDatabaseSetOption(&database, "driver", "adbc_driver_snowflake", nullptr);
AdbcDatabaseSetOption(&database, "uri", "<snowflake uri>", nullptr);
AdbcDatabaseInit(&database, nullptr);

Python

import adbc_driver_snowflake.dbapi

with adbc_driver_snowflake.dbapi.connect("<snowflake uri>") as conn:
    pass

library(adbcdrivermanager)

# Use the driver manager to connect to a database
uri <- Sys.getenv("ADBC_SNOWFLAKE_TEST_URI")
db <- adbc_database_init(adbcsnowflake::adbcsnowflake(), uri = uri)
con <- adbc_connection_init(db)

import (
   "context"

   "github.com/apache/arrow-adbc/go/adbc"
   "github.com/apache/arrow-adbc/go/adbc/driver/snowflake"
)

func main() {
   var drv snowflake.Driver
   db, err := drv.NewDatabase(map[string]string{
       adbc.OptionKeyURI: "<snowflake uri>",
   })
   if err != nil {
       // handle error
   }

   cnxn, err := db.Open(context.Background())
   if err != nil {
       // handle error
   }
   defer cnxn.Close()
}

URI Format#

The Snowflake URI should be of one of the following formats:

user[:password]@account/database/schema[?param1=value1&paramN=valueN]
user[:password]@account/database[?param1=value1&paramN=valueN]
user[:password]@host:port/database/schema?account=user_account[&param1=value1&paramN=valueN]
host:port/database/schema?account=user_account[&param1=value1&paramN=valueN]

Alternately, instead of providing a full URI, the configuration can be entirely supplied using the other available options or some combination of the URI and other options. If a URI is provided, it will be parsed first and any explicit options provided will override anything parsed from the URI.

Supported Features#

The Snowflake driver generally supports features defined in the ADBC API specification 1.0.0, as well as some additional, custom options.

Authentication#

Snowflake requires some form of authentication to be enabled. By default it will attempt to use Username/Password authentication. The username and password can be provided in the URI or via the username and password options to the AdbcDatabase.

Alternately, other types of authentication can be specified and customized. See “Client Options” below for details on all the options.

SSO Authentication#

Snowflake supports single sign-on. If your account has been configured with SSO, it can be used with the Snowflake driver by setting the following options when constructing the AdbcDatabase:

adbc.snowflake.sql.account: your Snowflake account. (For example, if you log in to https://foobar.snowflakecomputing.com, then your account identifier is foobar.)
adbc.snowflake.sql.auth_type: auth_ext_browser.
username: your username. (This should probably be your email, e.g. jdoe@example.com.)

A new browser tab or window should appear where you can continue the login. Once this is complete, you will have a complete ADBC database/connection object. Some users have reported needing other configuration options, such as adbc.snowflake.sql.region and adbc.snowflake.sql.uri.* (see below for a listing).

Python

import adbc_driver_snowflake.dbapi
# This will open a new browser tab, and block until you log in.
adbc_driver_snowflake.dbapi.connect(db_kwargs={
    "adbc.snowflake.sql.account": "foobar",
    "adbc.snowflake.sql.auth_type": "auth_ext_browser",
    "username": "jdoe@example.com",
})

library(adbcdrivermanager)
db <- adbc_database_init(
  adbcsnowflake::adbcsnowflake(),
  adbc.snowflake.sql.account = 'foobar',
  adbc.snowflake.sql.auth_type = 'auth_ext_browser'
  username = 'jdoe@example.com',
)
# This will open a new browser tab, and block until you log in.
con <- adbc_connection_init(db)

Bulk Ingestion#

Bulk ingestion is supported. The mapping from Arrow types to Snowflake types is provided below.

Partitioned Result Sets#

Partitioned result sets are not currently supported.

Performance#

Formal benchmarking is forthcoming. Snowflake does provide an Arrow native format for requesting results, but bulk ingestion is still currently executed using the REST API. As described in the Snowflake Documentation <https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/snowflakedb/gosnowflake#hdr-Batch_Inserts_and_Binding_Parameters> the driver will potentially attempt to improve performance by streaming the data (without creating files on the local machine) to a temporary stage for ingestion if the number of values exceeds some threshold.

In order for the driver to leverage this temporary stage, the user must have the CREATE STAGE privilege on the schema. If the user does not have this privilege, the driver will fall back to sending the data with the query to the snowflake database.

In addition, the current database and schema for the session must be set. If these are not set, the CREATE TEMPORARY STAGE command executed by the driver can fail with the following error:

CREATE TEMPORARY STAGE SYSTEM$BIND file_format=(type=csv field_optionally_enclosed_by='"')
CANNOT perform CREATE STAGE. This session does not have a current schema. Call 'USE SCHEMA' or use a qualified name.

In addition, results are potentially fetched in parallel from multiple endpoints. A limited number of batches are queued per endpoint, though data is always returned to the client in the order of the endpoints.

To manage the performance of result fetching there are two options to control buffering and concurrency behavior. These options are only available to be set on the AdbcStatement object:

adbc.rpc.result_queue_size: The number of batches to queue in the record reader. Defaults to 200. Must be an integer > 0.
adbc.snowflake.rpc.prefetch_concurrency: The number of concurrent streams being fetched from snowflake at a time. Defaults to 10. Must be an integer > 0.

Transactions#

Transactions are supported. Keep in mind that Snowflake transactions will implicitly commit if any DDL statements are run, such as CREATE TABLE.

Client Options#

The options used for creating a Snowflake Database connection can be customized. These options map 1:1 with the Snowflake Config object <https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/snowflakedb/gosnowflake#Config>.

adbc.snowflake.sql.db

The database this session should default to using.

adbc.snowflake.sql.schema

The schema this session should default to using.

adbc.snowflake.sql.warehouse

The warehouse this session should default to using.

adbc.snowflake.sql.role

The role that should be used for authentication.

adbc.snowflake.sql.region

The Snowflake region to use for constructing the connection URI.

adbc.snowflake.sql.account

The Snowflake account that should be used for authentication and building the connection URI.

adbc.snowflake.sql.uri.protocol

This should be either http or https.

adbc.snowflake.sql.uri.port

The port to use for constructing the URI for connection.

adbc.snowflake.sql.uri.host

The explicit host to use for constructing the URL to connect to.

adbc.snowflake.sql.auth_type

Allows specifying alternate types of authentication, the allowed values are:

auth_snowflake: General username/password authentication (this is the default)
auth_oauth: Use OAuth authentication for the snowflake connection.
auth_ext_browser: Use an external browser to access a FED and perform SSO auth.
auth_okta: Use a native Okta URL to perform SSO authentication using Okta
auth_jwt: Use a provided JWT to perform authentication.
auth_mfa: Use a username and password with MFA.

adbc.snowflake.sql.client_option.auth_token

If using OAuth or another form of authentication, this option is how you can explicitly specify the token to be used for connection.

adbc.snowflake.sql.client_option.okta_url

If using auth_okta, this option is required in order to specify the Okta URL to connect to for SSO authentication.

adbc.snowflake.sql.client_option.login_timeout

Specify login retry timeout excluding network roundtrip and reading http responses. Value should be formatted as described here <https://pkg.go.dev/time#ParseDuration>, such as 300ms, 1.5s or 1m30s. Even though negative values are accepted, the absolute value of such a duration will be used.

adbc.snowflake.sql.client_option.request_timeout

Specify request retry timeout excluding network roundtrip and reading http responses. Value should be formatted as described here <https://pkg.go.dev/time#ParseDuration>, such as 300ms, 1.5s or 1m30s. Even though negative values are accepted, the absolute value of such a duration will be used.

adbc.snowflake.sql.client_option.jwt_expire_timeout

JWT expiration will occur after this timeout. Value should be formatted as described here <https://pkg.go.dev/time#ParseDuration>, such as 300ms, 1.5s or 1m30s. Even though negative values are accepted, the absolute value of such a duration will be used.

adbc.snowflake.sql.client_option.client_timeout

Specify timeout for network roundtrip and reading http responses. Value should be formatted as described here <https://pkg.go.dev/time#ParseDuration>, such as 300ms, 1.5s or 1m30s. Even though negative values are accepted, the absolute value of such a duration will be used.

adbc.snowflake.sql.client_option.app_name

Allows specifying the Application Name to Snowflake for the connection.

adbc.snowflake.sql.client_option.tls_skip_verify

Disable verification of the server’s TLS certificate. Value should be true or false.

adbc.snowflake.sql.client_option.ocsp_fail_open_mode

Control the fail open mode for OCSP. Default is true. Value should be either true or false.

adbc.snowflake.sql.client_option.keep_session_alive

Enable the session to persist even after the connection is closed. Value should be either true or false.

adbc.snowflake.sql.client_option.jwt_private_key

Specify the RSA private key which should be used to sign the JWT for authentication. This should be a path to a file containing a PKCS1 private key to be read in and parsed. Commonly encoded in PEM blocks of type “RSA PRIVATE KEY”.

adbc.snowflake.sql.client_option.disable_telemetry

The Snowflake driver allows for telemetry information which can be disabled by setting this to true. Value should be either true or false.

adbc.snowflake.sql.client_option.tracing

Set the logging level

adbc.snowflake.sql.client_option.cache_mfa_token

When true, the MFA token is cached in the credential manager. Defaults to true on Windows/OSX, false on Linux.

adbc.snowflake.sql.client_option.store_temp_creds

When true, the ID token is cached in the credential manager. Defaults to true on Windows/OSX, false on Linux.

Metadata#

When calling AdbcConnectionGetTableSchema(), the returned Arrow Schema will contain metadata on each field:

DATA_TYPE: This will be a string containing the raw Snowflake data type of this column
PRIMARY_KEY: This will be either Y or N to indicate a column is a primary key.

In addition, the schema on the stream of results from a query will contain the following metadata keys on each field:

logicalType: The Snowflake logical type of this column. Will be one of fixed, real, text, date, variant, timestamp_ltz, timestamp_ntz, timestamp_tz, object, array, binary, time, boolean.
precision: An integer representing the Snowflake precision of the field.
scale: An integer representing the Snowflake scale of the values in this field.
charLength: If a text field, this will be equivalent to the VARCHAR(#) parameter #.
byteLength: Will contain the length, in bytes, of the raw data sent back from Snowflake regardless of the type of the field in Arrow.

Type Support#

Because Snowflake types do not necessary match up 1-to-1 with Arrow types the following is what should be expected when requesting data. Any conversions indicated are done to ensure consistency of the stream of record batches.

Snowflake Type	Arrow Type	Notes
integral types	int64	All integral types in Snowflake are stored as 64-bit integers.
float/double	float64	Snowflake does not distinguish between float or double. Both are 64-bit values.
decimal/numeric	int64/float64	If scale == 0, then int64 is used, else float64.
time	time64[ns]	For ingestion, time32 can also be used.
date	date32	For ingestion, date64 can also be used.
timestamp_ltz timestamp_ntz timestamp_tz	timestamp[ns]	Local time zone will be used. No timezone will be specified in the Arrow type. Values will be converted to UTC.
variant object array	string	Snowflake does not provide information about nested types. Values will be strings in a format similar to JSON that can be parsed. The Arrow type will contain a metadata key `logicalType` with the Snowflake field type.
geography geometry	string	There is no current canonical Arrow (extension) type for these types, so they will be returned as the string values that Snowflake provides.