METADATA$FILE_ROW_NUMBER shows the row number for each record in a staged data file.

• A. VALUE
• B. METADATA$FILENAME
• C. METADATA$FILE_ROW_NUMBER
• D. A VARIANT type column

Answer: (C)

Metadata about staged data includes special columns that let you trace data back to its source. METADATA$FILE_ROW_NUMBER specifically stores the row’s position within each source file, starting at 1 for the first line of every file. This is exactly what you’d use when you need to know where a particular record came from inside its original file or when debugging a load issue across many files. It’s different from METADATA$FILENAME, which tells you which file the row came from but not its line number inside that file. The other options aren’t about the row’s position in the file—VALUE would be a data value, and a VARIANT type column is for storing semi-structured data, not the per-file row index.