Exploring Data loaded to an internal stage in snowflake

Question

Data was loaded to an internal stage called MY_CH07_STAGE in snowflake. To explore the data we have the query below.

What does t mean and what does t.$1, t.$2,t.$3,t.$4,t.$5 and t.$6 mean?

select t.$1, t.$2,t.$3,t.$4,t.$5,t.$6
from @MY_CH07_STAGE (file_format => 'my_stage_file_format') t;

Answer 1

t is the alias to the "table" in this case the stage, and the format of the files found in there.

The .$1 is the first column of values.

For example from the Parquet data loading example

copy into cities
 from (select $1:continent::varchar,
              $1:country:name::varchar,
              $1:country:city::variant
      from @sf_tut_stage/cities.parquet);

Note the following:

$1 in the SELECT query refers to the single column where the Paraquet data is stored.

thus the $2 to $6 are the 2nd to 6th columns in the files column format.