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Data & Analytics · Intermediate

Snowflake Stream

A Snowflake object that records DML changes (inserts, updates, deletes) to a table since an offset, enabling CDC processing.

Definition

Streams add metadata columns METADATA$ACTION, METADATA$ISUPDATE and METADATA$ROW_ID. Consuming a stream in a committed DML transaction advances its offset. Types are standard, append-only and insert-only (for external and Iceberg tables). A stream becomes stale if not consumed within the source's retention period.

Example

CREATE STREAM orders_stream ON TABLE raw.orders;

Exam tip

A stream's offset advances only when it is consumed in a DML statement that commits; a SELECT alone doesn't advance it.

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