Connecting to Snowflake

This comparison shows the difference between callback-based and Promise-based connection handling.

info

See Authentication and MFA for information about upcoming changes to username/password authentication.

Without this library: Use callbacks to handle connection results, with additional complexity to check if the connection is ready.

With this library: Simply await the connection - clean and straightforward.

Examples

tip

Click “WITHOUT Helper Library” to see the original code
Click “WITH Helper Library” to see the improved code using this library

WITHOUT Helper Library
WITH Helper Library

Based on an example from Snowflake SDK documentation.

// Not using the Promise Helper Library

const connection = snowflake.createConnection({
  account: "your-account",
  username: "your-username",
  password: "your-password",
});

// Callback-based connection - harder to coordinate with other async code
connection.connect(function (err, conn) {
  // Connection logic must be inside callback or you need additional coordination
  if (err) {
    console.error("Unable to connect: " + err.message);
    return;
  }
  console.log("Successfully connected to Snowflake");
});

// Outside the callback, you need to check if connection is ready
const isConnectionValid = await connection.isValidAsync();
if (isConnectionValid) {
  // Now you can use the connection...
}

// Using the Promise Helper Library

const connection = promisifyConnection(
  snowflake.createConnection({
    account: "your-account",
    username: "your-username",
    password: "your-password",
  })
);

// Clean, Promise-based connection
try {
  await connection.connect();
  console.log("Successfully connected to Snowflake");
} catch (error) {
  console.error("Unable to connect:", error);
  return;
}

// Connection is ready - execute queries immediately
// const { resultsPromise } = connection.execute({ sqlText: "SELECT 1" });

Examples​

Examples