Conversion functions

Snowflake conversion functions supported in Snowflake compatibility mode.

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Snowflake conversion functions in Snowflake compatibility mode.

Snowflake spells as a function what Firebolt spells as a cast, so these are translated to CAST. The TRY_TO_* forms become TRY_CAST and answer NULL where the conversion fails, as they do in Snowflake.

Function	Support	Notes
TO_NUMBER, TO_DECIMAL, TO_NUMERIC	Supported	With no precision the result is NUMBER(38, 0), matching Snowflake. The three-argument form names its own precision and scale.
TO_VARCHAR, TO_CHAR	Supported	A format argument is not supported.
TO_DOUBLE	Supported
TO_BOOLEAN	Supported
TO_DATE	Supported
TRY_TO_NUMBER, TRY_TO_DECIMAL, TRY_TO_NUMERIC, TRY_TO_DOUBLE, TRY_TO_BOOLEAN, TRY_TO_DATE	Supported	Answer NULL where the conversion fails.
TO_BINARY, TRY_TO_BINARY	Not supported	Snowflake reads the string as HEX by default, so TO_BINARY('61') is the single byte 0x61. A cast would give the two bytes of the text 61, so this is refused rather than answered differently.
TO_TIMESTAMP	Supported	See Date and time.
TO_GEOGRAPHY	With limitations	See Geospatial.
TRY_TO_GEOGRAPHY, TO_GEOMETRY, TRY_TO_GEOMETRY	Not supported
TO_XML, TRY_TO_FILE	Not supported
TO_ARRAY, TO_OBJECT, TO_VARIANT	Not supported	The semi-structured types are not supported; see Data types.