[Wranglers] SQL pipe syntax is coming to Snowflake soon

[Ali, Saqib]

Snowflake's Pipe Operator (aka the Arrow Operator) is much more than the
Google Bigquery's Pipe (|>) operator. It is a way to write SQL based DAGs.
Here is an example:

select
  c_mktsegment
  , count(*) as num_of_customer_per_segment
from SNOWFLAKE_SAMPLE_DATA.TPCH_SF1.CUSTOMER
group by c_mktsegment
->> create or replace  table delete_me as select *
from $1 where num_of_customer_per_segment > 30000
-- note the use of $1 to refer to the output from the previous statement
->> select * from delete_me;
;

Snowflake's Pipe Operator (aka the Arrow Operator) supports multiple SQL
statements. Statements can be SELECTs, DMLs and pseudo-SQL statements (like
SHOW, DESCRIBE etc. in Snowflake) and Stored Procedures etc. Statements can
refer to results from any of the previous statements using the $1,$2, $3
syntax.

Here is example with using the pseudo-SQL statement "describe":

describe table SNOWFLAKE_SAMPLE_DATA.TPCH_SF1.CUSTOMER
->> select *
from $1
where "type" ilike '%varchar%' ;



On Tue, May 13, 2025 at 10:27 PM Ali, Saqib <docbook.xml at gmail.com> wrote:

>  Maybe Snowflake should have called it an Arrow Operator instead of Pipe
> Operator:
>
> Bigquery and Databricks use "|>"
> Snowflake uses "->>"
>
> On Mon, May 12, 2025 at 6:01 AM Ali, Saqib <docbook.xml at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I am curious why Snowflake chose "->>" as the Pipe Operator when
>> Google Bigquery has already adopted "|>" as the Pipe Operator for SQL.
>> ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
>>
>>
>> On Sat, May 10, 2025 at 10:21 PM Ali, Saqib <docbook.xml at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > Following in Google BigQuery's footsteps, Snowflake will be adding
>> support for the SQL Pipe Operator soon. The new pipe operator (->>) will
>> enable chaining of  SQL statements. In the chain of SQL statements, the
>> results of one statement can serve as the input to another statement. The
>> pipe operator can simplify the execution of dependent SQL statements and
>> improve the readability and flexibility of complex SQL operations.
>> >
>>
>
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