Can you specify more than one file format when loading a table?

• A. True
• B. False
• C. Multiple file formats are allowed
• D. Only one file format is allowed

Answer: (B)

When loading data into Snowflake, a single load operation uses one file format to define how to parse the input. The file format specifies how to interpret the bytes (such as the data type, delimiters, header handling, compression, etc.), and that definition is applied to every input file in that load. Because the parser must be consistent for all files in the operation, you can’t mix multiple formats in one load. If you have files in different formats, you need to run separate COPY operations for each format (or preprocess them so they share a single format). You can point to different formats via named or inline file format definitions, but only one format is used per load.