SnowPro Associate: Platform Question 230
Single answer○ LISTA data engineer is validating whether daily CSV files have arrived in an Amazon S3 external stage before loading them into Snowflake. The files are stored under a date-based folder structure, and the engineer only wants to view files for 2026-04-13 that begin with "sales_". Which command is the most appropriate to use to inspect the staged files before running COPY INTO?
- A
LIST @ext_sales_stage PATTERN='.2026-04-13/sales_.[.]csv'
- B
GET @ext_sales_stage file://tmp/sales/ PATTERN='.2026-04-13/sales_.[.]csv'
- C
SHOW FILES IN @ext_sales_stage LIKE '2026-04-13/sales_%'
- D
SELECT * FROM @ext_sales_stage WHERE METADATA$FILENAME LIKE '2026-04-13/sales_%'
Show answer and explanation
Correct answer: A
Explanation
To inspect files in a Snowflake stage before loading, use LIST (or LS). This command works with named internal and external stages and can be combined with PATTERN to filter filenames using a regular expression. In real-world ingestion workflows, LIST is commonly used to confirm that expected files have arrived and that naming conventions are correct before executing COPY INTO. GET is for downloading from internal stages, not listing external stage contents. Querying staged files with SELECT is for reading data, not basic file inventory. Snowflake documentation for staged files and data loading identifies LIST as the command for enumerating stage contents and PATTERN as the filtering mechanism.
- A. Correct.
Correct. LIST (or its alias LS) is used to inspect files available in a named stage, including external stages such as S3-backed stages. The PATTERN clause filters returned filenames using a regular expression, making it appropriate for checking whether the expected dated sales CSV files are present before loading.
- B. Incorrect.
Incorrect. GET is used to download files from an internal stage to a local file system, not to inspect files in an external stage. It is not the right command for listing available staged files, and GET does not apply here as a pre-load validation step for an S3 external stage.
- C. Incorrect.
Incorrect. SHOW FILES IN is not the standard Snowflake command used to list files in a stage for this purpose. Candidates may confuse SHOW-style metadata commands with stage file inspection, but LIST/LS is the correct command for viewing staged files.
- D. Incorrect.
Incorrect. Querying a stage with SELECT is used to read file contents from staged data, often together with file formats, not to simply inspect which files exist. Although metadata columns such as METADATA$FILENAME can be queried when selecting staged data, this approach is inefficient and inappropriate when the requirement is just to verify file presence before COPY INTO.