Syntax#

1. LOAD DATA [LOW_PRIORITY | CONCURRENT] [LOCAL] INFILE ‘file_name’
2. INTO TABLE tbl_name
3. [CHARACTER SET charset]
4. [{FIELDS | COLUMNS} [TERMINATED BY ‘string’] [[OPTIONALLY] ENCLOSED BY ‘char’]]
5. [LINES [STARTING BY ‘string’] [TERMINATED BY ‘string’]

]

6. [IGNORE number {LINES | ROWS}]
7. [(col_name_or_user_var,…)]
8. [SET col_name = expr,…]

using LOAD DATA INFILE to load large amount of data to database

Consider the following example assuming that you have a ’;‘-delimited CSV to load into your database.

1;max;male;manager;12-7-1985
2;jack;male;executive;21-8-1990
.
.
.
1000000;marta;female;accountant;15-6-1992

Create the table for insertion.

CREATE TABLE `employee` ( `id` INT NOT NULL ,
                          `name` VARCHAR NOT NULL, 
                          `sex` VARCHAR NOT NULL ,
                          `designation` VARCHAR NOT NULL ,
                          `dob` VARCHAR NOT NULL   );                              

Use the following query to insert the values in that table.

LOAD DATA INFILE 'path of the file/file_name.txt' 
INTO TABLE employee
FIELDS TERMINATED BY ';' //specify the delimiter separating the values
LINES TERMINATED BY '\r\n'
(id,name,sex,designation,dob)

Consider the case where the date format is non standard.

1;max;male;manager;17-Jan-1985
2;jack;male;executive;01-Feb-1992
.
.
.
1000000;marta;female;accountant;25-Apr-1993

In this case you can change the format of the dob column before inserting like this.

LOAD DATA INFILE 'path of the file/file_name.txt' 
INTO TABLE employee
FIELDS TERMINATED BY ';' //specify the delimiter separating the values
LINES TERMINATED BY '\r\n'
(id,name,sex,designation,@dob)
SET date = STR_TO_DATE(@date, '%d-%b-%Y');

This example of LOAD DATA INFILE does not specify all the available features.

You can see more references on LOAD DATA INFILE here.

Import a CSV file into a MySQL table

The following command imports CSV files into a MySQL table with the same columns while respecting CSV quoting and escaping rules.

load data infile '/tmp/file.csv'
into table my_table
fields terminated by ','
optionally enclosed by '"'
escaped by '"'
lines terminated by '\n'
ignore 1 lines; -- skip the header row

Load data with duplicates

If you use the LOAD DATA INFILE command to populate a table with existing data, you will often find that the import fails due to duplicates. There are several possible ways to overcome this problem.

LOAD DATA LOCAL

If this option has been enabled in your server, it can be used to load a file that exists on the client computer rather than the server. A side effect is that duplicate rows for unique values are ignored.

LOAD DATA LOCAL INFILE 'path of the file/file_name.txt' 
INTO TABLE employee

LOAD DATA INFILE ‘fname’ REPLACE

When the replace keyword is used duplicate unique or primary keys will result in the existing row being replaced with new ones

LOAD DATA INFILE 'path of the file/file_name.txt' 
REPLACE INTO TABLE employee

LOAD DATA INFILE ‘fname’ IGNORE

The opposite of REPLACE, existing rows will be preserved and new ones ignored. This behavior is similar to LOCAL described above. However the file need not exist on the client computer.

LOAD DATA INFILE 'path of the file/file_name.txt' 
IGNORE INTO TABLE employee

Load via intermediary table

Sometimes ignoring or replacing all duplicates may not be the ideal option. You may need to make decisions based on the contents of other columns. In that case the best option is to load into an intermediary table and transfer from there.

INSERT INTO employee SELECT * FROM intermediary WHERE ...

import / export