August 01-02, 2023 — 7.26 Release Notes

The following new features and updates (enhancements, fixes, etc.) have been introduced in this release. If you have any questions, please contact Snowflake Support.

Important

Each release may include updates that require the web interface to be refreshed.

As a general practice, to ensure these updates do not impact your usage, we recommend refreshing the web interface after each Snowflake release has been deployed.

SQL Updates

SELECT *: Selecting Columns Matching a SQL Pattern and Replacing Column Values

With this release, in a SELECT * statement, you can specify ILIKE with a pattern containing SQL wildcards (_ to match a single character and % to match any sequence of zero or more characters) to select only the columns that match that pattern. The ILIKE keyword performs case-insensitive matching.

SELECT * ILIKE '<pattern>' ...
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For example, to select only the columns with names containing id:

SELECT * ILIKE '%id%' ...
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In addition, you can replace the values of specific columns in a SELECT * statement by specifying REPLACE with an expression that evaluates to the new value:

SELECT * REPLACE (<expr> AS <col_name> [ , <expr> AS <col_name> , ... ])
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For example, to prepend the string 'DEPT-' to each value in the department_id column:

SELECT * REPLACE ('DEPT-' || department_id AS department_id) ...
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For more information, see SELECT.

Transforming a GEOMETRY Object to a Different Spatial Reference System (ST_TRANSFORM) — General Availability

With this release, we are pleased to announce the general availability of the ST_TRANSFORM function, which you can use to transform a GEOMETRY object from one spatial reference system (SRS) to another.

The following example creates a POINT GEOMETRY object that uses EPSG:32633 (WGS 84 / UTM zone 33N) as the SRS. The example transforms this GEOMETRY object to use EPSG:3857 (Web Mercator).

-- Set the output format to EWKT
ALTER SESSION SET GEOMETRY_OUTPUT_FORMAT='EWKT';

SELECT
  ST_TRANSFORM(
    ST_GEOMFROMWKT('POINT(389866.35 5819003.03)', 32633),
    3857
  ) AS transformed_geom;
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+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| transformed_geom                                              |
|---------------------------------------------------------------|
| SRID=3857;POINT(1489140.093765644 6892872.198680112)          |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+

For more information, see ST_TRANSFORM.

Vectorized Python UDTFs — Preview

With this release, we are pleased to announce the preview of Vectorized Python UDTFs (user-defined table functions).

Vectorized Python UDTFs enable seamless partition-by-partition processing by operating on partitions as pandas DataFrames and returning results as pandas DataFrames or lists of pandas Series or arrays. Vectorized Python UDTFs allow for easy integration with libraries that operate on pandas DataFrames or pandas arrays.

For more information, see Vectorized Python UDTFs.

Data Collaboration Updates

Recurring Subscription-based Pricing Plans for Paid Listings — Preview

With this release, we are pleased to announce the preview of recurring subscription-based pricing plans for paid listings. With this plan, you can bill consumers upfront on a recurring basis for access to your listing.

For more information, see Paid Listings Pricing Models.

Non-Recurring Subscription-based Pricing Plans for Paid Listings — General Availability

With this release, we are pleased to announce the general availability of one time subscription-based pricing plans for paid listings. With this plan, you only need to bill consumers once for access to your listing, with no option to repurchase or renew.

For more information, see Paid Listings Pricing Models.

Documentation and Learning Resources

Weekly Release Notes in the Snowflake Documentation

With this release, we are pleased to announce an update to the format of the Release Notes in the Snowflake Documentation:

  • Historically, we have published the details for each weekly release, including the version and release dates, only in the Release Notes and Announcements (in the Snowflake Community).

  • Starting in August 2023:

    • We will no longer aggregate the Release Notes (in the Snowflake Documentation) by month. Instead, we will document each weekly release separately by version and release dates, effectively replicating the format of the Release Notes in the Snowflake Community.

    • Additionally, we have backported this change to the monthly Release Notes for June 2023 and July 2023. The Release Notes prior to June 2023 remain unchanged.

  • Through the month of August, we will continue publishing the Release Notes weekly in the Snowflake Community.

  • Planned for September 2023; however, this schedule is subject to change:

    • We will no longer publish detailed weekly Release Notes in the Snowflake Community.

    • We will publish detailed weekly Release Notes only in the Snowflake Documentation.