Temporary and Transient Tables

Question 1

Is temporary tables available to other users?

Answer 1

Nope…it is only for that user and for that session.

Question 2

Can temporary tables be retrieved?

Answer 2

No, not by user or even by SF after that session.
Not recoverable.

Question 3

Can temporary and non temporary table share same name?

Answer 3

Yes. Temporary table created in the session takes the precedence…and all DML operations are done on that table. Similarly even between temporary tables you can keep same names, then the newly created one will take precedence.

Question 4

Can you change temporary tables to other table types using ALTER command?

Answer 4

Nope…you have drop/create/replace only. You can clone to Transient type though.

Question 5

What are transient tables?

Answer 5

These tables are like temporary tables but they will stay even out of session unless it is dropped explicitly.
They are similar to permanent tables except they do not have fail safe.

Question 6

What is the key difference between transient and permanent table?

Answer 6

No fail safe in transient table.
Time travel can only be 0 or 1 days… (not 90 days like permanent tables in enterprise edition).

Question 7

What kind of cloning exists in terms of changing table types?

Answer 7

Temporary tables can be cloned to Transient and vice versa. None of them can be cloned to Permanent.

Permanent can be clone to temporary and transient.

Question 8

Can temporary/transient tables be cloned to permanent tables?

Answer 8

No but vice versa is possible.

Question 9

Can time travel retention period set to 0 for permanent tables?

Answer 9

Yes it can be set any time. It will go to fail safe mode when table is dropped.

Question 10

Can temporary tables have time travel?

Answer 10

Yes up to 1 day within that session.