TYPEOF¶

Syntax¶

TYPEOF( <expr> )

Arguments¶

expr

The argument can be a column name or a general expression of type VARIANT. If necessary, you can cast the expr to a VARIANT.

Returns¶

Returns a VARCHAR that contains the data type of the input expression, such as BOOLEAN, DECIMAL, ARRAY, OBJECT, etc.

Usage notes¶

• The returned string might be DECIMAL even if the input is an exact integer, due to optimizations that change the physical storage type of the input.

• This function does not support a structured type as an input argument.

Examples¶

Create a table that contains different types of data stored inside a VARIANT column, then use the TYPEOF function to determine the data type of each one.

Create and populate a table. Note that the INSERT statement uses the PARSE_JSON function.

CREATE OR REPLACE TABLE vartab (n NUMBER(2), v VARIANT);

INSERT INTO vartab
  SELECT column1 AS n, PARSE_JSON(column2) AS v
    FROM VALUES (1, 'null'), 
                (2, null), 
                (3, 'true'),
                (4, '-17'), 
                (5, '123.12'), 
                (6, '1.912e2'),
                (7, '"Om ara pa ca na dhih"  '), 
                (8, '[-1, 12, 289, 2188, false,]'), 
                (9, '{ "x" : "abc", "y" : false, "z": 10} ') 
       AS vals;

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Query the data:

SELECT n, v, TYPEOF(v)
  FROM vartab
  ORDER BY n;

Copy

+---+------------------------+------------+
| N | V                      | TYPEOF(V)  |
|---+------------------------+------------|
| 1 | null                   | NULL_VALUE |
| 2 | NULL                   | NULL       |
| 3 | true                   | BOOLEAN    |
| 4 | -17                    | INTEGER    |
| 5 | 123.12                 | DECIMAL    |
| 6 | 1.912000000000000e+02  | DOUBLE     |
| 7 | "Om ara pa ca na dhih" | VARCHAR    |
| 8 | [                      | ARRAY      |
|   |   -1,                  |            |
|   |   12,                  |            |
|   |   289,                 |            |
|   |   2188,                |            |
|   |   false,               |            |
|   |   undefined            |            |
|   | ]                      |            |
| 9 | {                      | OBJECT     |
|   |   "x": "abc",          |            |
|   |   "y": false,          |            |
|   |   "z": 10              |            |
|   | }                      |            |
+---+------------------------+------------+

The following example uses the TYPEOF function to determine the data type of a value by casting the value to a VARIANT.

Create and populate a table:

CREATE OR REPLACE TABLE typeof_cast(status VARCHAR, time TIMESTAMP);

INSERT INTO typeof_cast VALUES('check in', '2024-01-17 19:00:00.000 -0800');

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Query the table using the TYPEOF function by casting each value to a VARIANT:

SELECT status,
       TYPEOF(status::VARIANT) AS "TYPE OF STATUS",
       time,
       TYPEOF(time::VARIANT) AS "TYPE OF TIME"
  FROM  typeof_cast;

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+----------+----------------+-------------------------+---------------+
| STATUS   | TYPE OF STATUS | TIME                    | TYPE OF TIME  |
|----------+----------------+-------------------------+---------------|
| check in | VARCHAR        | 2024-01-17 19:00:00.000 | TIMESTAMP_NTZ |
+----------+----------------+-------------------------+---------------+