Snowpark API

The Snowpark API provides an intuitive library for querying and processing data at scale in Snowflake. Using a library for any of three languages, you can build applications that process data in Snowflake without moving data to the system where your application code runs, and process at scale as part of the elastic and serverless Snowflake engine.

Snowflake currently provides Snowpark libraries for three languages: Java, Python, and Scala.

Quickstarts

You can use the following Quickstarts to get a hands-on introduction to Snowpark.

Developer Guides

You can use Snowpark libraries for the languages listed in the following table:

Language

Developer Guide

API Reference

Java

Snowpark Developer Guide for Java

Snowpark Library for Java API Reference

Python

Snowpark Developer Guide for Python

Snowpark Library for Python API Reference

Scala

Snowpark Developer Guide for Scala

Snowpark Library for Scala API Reference

Download

You can download the Snowpark library for any of the three supported languages. For downloads, see Snowpark Client Download (Snowflake Developer Center).

Key Features

Snowpark has several features that distinguish it from other client libraries, as described in the following sections.

Benefits When Compared with the Spark Connector

In comparison to using the Snowflake Connector for Spark, developing with Snowpark includes the following benefits:

  • Support for interacting with data within Snowflake using libraries and patterns purpose built for different languages without compromising on performance or functionality.

  • Support for authoring Snowpark code using local tools such as Jupyter, VS Code, or IntelliJ.

  • Support for pushdown for all operations, including Snowflake UDFs. This means Snowpark pushes down all data transformation and heavy lifting to the Snowflake data cloud, enabling you to efficiently work with data of any size.

  • No requirement for a separate cluster outside of Snowflake for computations. All of the computations are done within Snowflake. Scale and compute management are handled by Snowflake.

Ability to Build SQL Statements with Native Constructs

The Snowpark API provides programming language constructs for building SQL statements. For example, the API provides a select method that you can use to specify the column names to return, rather than writing 'select column_name' as a string.

Although you can still use a string to specify the SQL statement to execute, you benefit from features like intelligent code completion and type checking when you use the native language constructs provided by Snowpark.

Example

Python code in the following example performs a select operation on the sample_product_data table, specifying the columns id, name, and serial_number.

>>> # Import the col function from the functions module.
>>> from snowflake.snowpark.functions import col

>>> # Create a DataFrame that contains the id, name, and serial_number
>>> # columns in the "sample_product_data" table.
>>> df = session.table("sample_product_data").select(col("id"), col("name"), col("serial_number"))
>>> df.show()
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Reduced Data Transfer

Snowpark operations are executed lazily on the server, meaning that you can use the library to delay running data transformation until as late in the pipeline as possible while batching up many operations into a single operation. This reduces the amount of data transferred between your client and the Snowflake database. It also improves performance.

The core abstraction in Snowpark is the DataFrame, which represents a set of data and provides methods to operate on that data. In your client code, you construct a DataFrame object and set it up to retrieve the data that you want to use (for example, the columns containing the data, the filter to apply to rows, etc.).

The data isn’t retrieved when you construct the DataFrame object. Instead, when you are ready to retrieve the data, you can perform an action that evaluates the DataFrame objects and sends the corresponding SQL statements to the Snowflake database for execution.

Example

Python code in the following example sets up a query against a table. It calls the collect method to execute the query and retrieve results.

>>> # Create a DataFrame with the "id" and "name" columns from the "sample_product_data" table.
>>> # This does not execute the query.
>>> df = session.table("sample_product_data").select(col("id"), col("name"))

>>> # Send the query to the server for execution and
>>> # return a list of Rows containing the results.
>>> results = df.collect()
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Ability to Create UDFs Inline

You can create user-defined functions (UDFs) inline in a Snowpark app. Snowpark can push your code to the server, where the code can operate on the data at scale. This is useful for looping or batch functionality where creating as a UDF will allow Snowflake to parallelize and apply the codeful logic at scale within Snowflake.

You can write functions in the same language that you use to write your client code (for example, by using anonymous functions in Scala or by using lambda functions in Python). To use these functions to process data in the Snowflake database, you define and call user-defined functions (UDFs) in your custom code.

Snowpark automatically pushes the custom code for UDFs to the Snowflake engine. When you call the UDF in your client code, your custom code is executed on the server (where the data is). You don’t need to transfer the data to your client in order to execute the function on the data.

Example

Python code in the following example creates a UDF called my_udf and assigns it to the add_one variable.

>>> from snowflake.snowpark.types import IntegerType
>>> add_one = udf(lambda x: x+1, return_type=IntegerType(), input_types=[IntegerType()], name="my_udf", replace=True)
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