What is SQL? 

SQL stands for Structured Query Language. It’s a standardized format for querying and managing databases.

How is It Used, and What Are DDL and DML?

SQL is by far the most common language for data communication. Although by definition it may seem like all databases use the same version, but this is far from the truth. Most databases have at least some proprietary SQL. What’s more, some databases don’t support it at all, or use a significantly truncated and simplified version.

Within SQL, common operations are grouped into DML, “Data Manipulation Language”, and DDL, “Data Definition Language”. DML statements like SELECT, UPDATE, and INSERT let users retrieve, store, modify, delete, insert and update data in the database.  DDL statements like CREATE, ALTER and DROP allow a database manager to create, modify, and remove database objects such as tables, indexes, and users.

How is It Supported in Snowflake?

Snowflake is a data platform and data warehouse (relational database), supporting the most common standardized SQL version, thus enabling all common operations. Snowflake also supports all of the operations that enable data warehousing operations, like create, update, insert, etc.