What does setting VALIDATION_MODE in COPY INTO TABLE do?

• A. Validate the data files without loading them.
• B. Load the data first, then validate
• C. Ignore errors during validation
• D. Validate a random subset of rows only

Answer: (A)

Setting VALIDATION_MODE on COPY INTO TABLE makes the operation a dry run: Snowflake reads the input data files and checks that they conform to the target table’s schema and the chosen file format, but it does not insert any rows. This lets you catch data-type, length, nullability, and format errors before loading, and it returns a report of any issues found so you can fix the data. It does not perform the load, so it won’t actually write data, and it isn’t about skipping errors or validating only a random subset.