You are creating a table 'ORDERS' to store customer orders and need to include an 'ORDER ID' column that automatically increments with each new order. You want to achieve this with minimal manual inte

Question

Options

• AUse a Snowflake Sequence and retrieve its next value in the 'INSERT' statement using `ORDERS
• BImplement a stored procedure that retrieves the maximum 'ORDER_ID' from the table, increments
• CDefine as ` IDENTITY column during table creation so the column increments automatically with
• DCreate a separate table to store the last used 'ORDER ID and update it in a transaction before
• EInsert a random integer with or functions to create unique ID.

• A
  64% (21)
• B
  9% (3)
• D
  6% (2)
• E
  21% (7)

Explanation

Options A and C are correct because Snowflake provides two native, built-in mechanisms for auto-incrementing: IDENTITY columns (C) automatically increment on every INSERT without any extra code, and Sequences (A) provide a shared counter object whose NEXTVAL you reference in an INSERT - both require zero manual tracking and are idiomatic Snowflake solutions.

Why the distractors fail:

• B (stored procedure with MAX+1) is fragile and unsafe - concurrent inserts can produce duplicate IDs before the transaction commits, and it adds unnecessary complexity.
• D (separate tracking table) has the same concurrency problem and requires a multi-step transaction for every insert, making it slow and error-prone.
• E (random integers / UUID functions) don't increment - they generate non-sequential unique values, which may cause gaps, collisions, or ordering issues unfit for an order ID.

Memory tip: Think "Identity = Invisible effort" - an IDENTITY column does the work silently on every row, while a Sequence is like a shared ticket machine you explicitly pull a number from. Both are Snowflake-native; anything involving MAX(), separate tables, or random numbers is a DIY workaround that Snowflake's built-ins make obsolete.

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