Can a permanent table be cloned into a temporary or transient table?

• A. True
• B. Only into a permanent derived temporary table
• C. Only if the source is not encrypted
• D. False

Answer: (A)

Zero-copy cloning lets you create a new table from an existing one without duplicating the data, and you can choose the persistence type for the new table. That means you can clone a permanent table into a temporary or transient table—the clone is just another table object that shares the same underlying data until either table is modified.

In practice, you’d do something like creating a temporary clone: CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE clone_name CLONE source_permanent_name. The clone inherits the source’s schema and starts from the same data snapshot, but its lifecycle is governed by its own type (temporary lasts for the session, transient has its own retention rules). Changes to one do not affect the other—though both initially reference the same storage until a write occurs, at which point they diverge.

Encryption of the source or other constraints don’t prevent cloning; the key idea is that persistence type is about the target, not the source, so a permanent table can be cloned into a temporary or transient table.