Sep 14, 2026: Catalog-linked databases: Write support for nested namespaces

Catalog-linked databases now support creating and writing to tables in nested namespaces when the catalog-linked database uses a catalog integration for a catalog that supports nested namespaces. Previously, creating tables and writing to tables in nested namespaces wasn’t supported for any remote catalog.

To create a nested namespace, set the NAMESPACE_MODE parameter to FLATTEN_NESTED_NAMESPACE and specify a NAMESPACE_FLATTEN_DELIMITER for your catalog-linked database. Then, use CREATE SCHEMA with the flattened namespace name to create the nested namespace. The parent namespace must already exist. Snowflake doesn’t automatically create parent namespaces.

For example, the following command creates a namespace named namespace1a, nested under the existing top-level namespace namespace1, using a _ delimiter:

CREATE SCHEMA namespace1_namespace1a;

You can then create or write to Iceberg tables in the nested namespace, and use DROP SCHEMA to drop it, the same way you would for a top-level namespace.

Caution

Don’t use a period (.) in a namespace name unless period is the value you set for the NAMESPACE_FLATTEN_DELIMITER parameter and NAMESPACE_MODE is set to FLATTEN_NESTED_NAMESPACE. Otherwise, the namespace won’t be created.

This update also includes the following changes:

  • SHOW SCHEMAS output now includes an is_nested column for all schemas. For a schema in a catalog-linked database, this column indicates whether the corresponding namespace is nested under another namespace in the remote catalog. For all other schemas, this column returns N.
  • The NAMESPACE_FLATTEN_DELIMITER parameter now only supports punctuation, symbols, or digits. Letters and whitespace aren’t allowed.

For more information, see: