What is this object called?

For this object, Snowflake executes code outside Snowflake; the executed code is known as remote service.

What is this object called?

A. External procedure

B. External function

C. External Script

D. External job

View Answer

Answer: B

Explanation:

An external function calls code that executes outside Snowflake; the executed code is known as a remote service.

Users can write and call their own remote services, or call remote services written by third parties. These remote services can be written using any HTTP server stack, including cloud serverless compute services such as AWS Lambda.

From the perspective of a user running a SQL statement, an external function behaves like any other scalar function. A SQL statement performs the following actions: Calls the function, optionally passing parameters.

Receives a value back from the function.

In SQL statements, external functions generally behave like UDFs (user-defined functions). For example, external functions follow these rules:

Inside Snowflake, an external function is represented as a database object. That object is created in a specific database and schema, and can be referenced using dot notation (e.g. MY_DATABASE.MY_SCHEMA.MY_EXTERNAL_FUNCTION()).

An external function can appear in any clause of a SQL statement in which other types of functions can appear (e.g. the WHERE clause).

The returned value can be a compound value, such as a VARIANT that contains JSON.

External functions can be overloaded; two different functions can have the same name but different signatures (different numbers or data types of input parameters).

An external function can be part of a more complex expression: select upper(zipcode_to_city_external_function(zipcode)) from address_table;

https://docs.snowflake.com/en/sql-reference/external-functions-introduction.html#what-is-an-external-fun ction