Defining Azure Synapse External File Formats

The following properties are applicable to an Azure Synapse External File Format object.

Tab	Property	Description	Additional Information
General	SQL Format Type	Specifies the format of the external data	Based on the type you select, additional properties are enabled. For more information, refer to Microsoft Azure Synapse documentation.
	Parquet Data Compression	Specifies the data compression method to be used for external data	Available only when SQL Format Type is set to parquet
	ORC Data Compression	Specifies the data compression method to be used for external data	Available only when SQL Format Type is set to orc
	Serde Method	Specifies the serializer and deserializer method to be used	Available only when SQL Format Type is set to rcfile
	RC File Data Compression	Specifies the data compression method to be used for external data	Available only when SQL Format Type is set to rcfile
	Field Terminator	Specifies one or more characters that indicate the end of each field (column) in a text-delimited file	The default character is the pipe sign (|). Available only when SQL Format Type is set to delimitedtext
	String Delimiter	Specifies the field terminator characters for String type data, enclosed in double quotes	Available only when SQL Format Type is set to delimitedtext
	Date Format	Specifies a custom format for Date and Time type data	Available only when SQL Format Type is set to delimitedtext
	Use Type Default	Specifies whether missing values in delimited text files are stored using default value or stored as NULL	Available only when SQL Format Type is set to delimitedtext
	Encoding	Specifies the encoding used for delimited text files	Available only when SQL Format Type is set to delimitedtext
	Delimit Data Compression	Specifies the data compression method to be used for external data	Available only when SQL Format Type is set to delimitedtext