Is there an easy way to run a MySQL query from the Linux command line and output the results in CSV format?
Here's what I'm doing now:
mysql -u uid -ppwd -D dbname << EOQ | sed -e 's/ /,/g' | tee list.csv
select id, concat("\"",name,"\"") as name
from students
EOQ
It gets messy when there are a lot of columns that need to be surrounded by quotes, or if there are quotes in the results that need to be escaped.
From http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/1475/save-mysql-query-results-into-a-text-or-csv-file/
SELECT order_id,product_name,qty
FROM orders
WHERE foo = 'bar'
INTO OUTFILE '/var/lib/mysql-files/orders.csv'
FIELDS TERMINATED BY ','
ENCLOSED BY '"'
LINES TERMINATED BY '\n';
Note: That syntax may need to be re-ordered to
SELECT order_id,product_name,qty
INTO OUTFILE '/var/lib/mysql-files/orders.csv'
FIELDS TERMINATED BY ','
ENCLOSED BY '"'
LINES TERMINATED BY '\n'
FROM orders
WHERE foo = 'bar';
in more recent versions of MySQL.
Using this command columns names will not be exported.
Also note that /var/lib/mysql-files/orders.csv will be on the server that is running MySQL. The user that the MySQL process is running under must have permissions to write to the directory chosen, or the command will fail.
If you want to write output to your local machine from a remote server (especially a hosted or virtualize machine such as Heroku or Amazon RDS), this solution is not suitable.
mysql --batch, -B
Print results using tab as the column separator, with each row on a new line. With this option, mysql does not use the history file. Batch mode results in non-tabular output format and escaping of special characters. Escaping may be disabled by using raw mode; see the description for the --raw option.
This will give you a tab separated file. Since commas (or strings containing comma) are not escaped it is not straightforward to change the delimiter to comma.
Here's a fairly gnarly way of doing it. Found it somewhere, can't take any credit
mysql --user=wibble --password wobble -B -e "select * from vehicle_categories;" | sed "s/'/\'/;s/\t/\",\"/g;s/^/\"/;s/$/\"/;s/\n//g" > vehicle_categories.csv
Works pretty well. Once again though a regex proves write only.
Regex Explanation:
So, putting it all together:
s/'/\'/ replace ' with \'
s/\t/\",\"/g replace all \t (tab) with ","
s/^/\"/ at the beginning of the line place a "
s/$/\"/ at the end of the line place a "
s/\n//g replace all \n (newline) with nothing
Unix/Cygwin only, pipe it through 'tr':
mysql <database> -e "<query here>" | tr '\t' ',' > data.csv
N.B.: This handles neither embedded commas, nor embedded tabs.
This saved me a couple of times. Fast and it works!
--batch Print results using tab as the column separator, with each row on a new line.
--raw disables character escaping (\n, \t, \0, and \)
Example:
mysql -udemo_user -p -h127.0.0.1 --port=3306 \
--default-character-set=utf8mb4 --database=demo_database \
--batch --raw < /tmp/demo_sql_query.sql > /tmp/demo_csv_export.tsv
For completeness you could convert to csv (but be careful because tabs could be inside field values - e.g. text fields)
tr '\t' ',' < file.tsv > file.csv
The OUTFILE solution given by Paul Tomblin causes a file to be written on the MySQL server itself, so this will work only if you have FILE access, as well as login access or other means for retrieving the file from that box.
If you don't have such access, and tab-delimited output is a reasonable substitute for CSV (e.g., if your end goal is to import to Excel), then Serbaut's solution (using mysql --batch and optionally --raw) is the way to go.
MySQL Workbench can export recordsets to CSV, and it seems to handle commas in fields very well. The CSV opens up in OpenOffice fine.
All of the solutions here to date, except the MySQL workbench one, are incorrect and quite possibly unsafe (ie security issues) for at least some possible content in the mysql db.
MYSQL Workbench (and similarly PHPMyAdmin) provide a formally correct solution, but are designed for downloading the output to a user's location. They're not so useful for things like automating data export.
It is not possible to generate reliably correct csv from the output of mysql -B -e 'SELECT ...' because that cannot encode carriage returns and white space in fields. The '-s' flag to mysql does do backslash escaping, and might lead to a correct solution. However, using a scripting language (one with decent internal data structures that is, not bash), and libraries where the encoding issues have already been carefully worked out is far safer.
I thought about writing a script for this, but as soon as I thought about what I'd call it, it occurred to me to search for pre-existing work by the same name. While I haven't gone over it thoroughly, the solution at https://github.com/robmiller/mysql2csv looks promising. Depending on your application, the yaml approach to specifying the SQL commands might or might not appeal though. I'm also not thrilled with the requirement for a more recent version of ruby than comes as standard with my Ubuntu 12.04 laptop or Debian Squeeze servers. Yes I know I could use RVM, but I'd rather not maintain that for such a simple purpose.
Hopefully someone will point out a suitable tool, that's had a bit of testing. Otherwise I'll probably update this when I find or write one.
Many of the answers on this page are weak because they don't handle the general case of what can occur in CSV format. e.g. commas and quotes embedded in fields and other conditions that always come up eventually. We need a general solution that works for all valid CSV input data.
Here's a simple and strong solution in Python:
#!/usr/bin/env python
import csv
import sys
tab_in = csv.reader(sys.stdin, dialect=csv.excel_tab)
comma_out = csv.writer(sys.stdout, dialect=csv.excel)
for row in tab_in:
comma_out.writerow(row)
Name that file tab2csv, put it on your path, give it execute permissions, then use it like this:
mysql OTHER_OPTIONS --batch --execute='select * from whatever;' | tab2csv > outfile.csv
The Python CSV-handling functions cover corner cases for CSV input format(s).
This could be improved to handle very large files via a streaming approach.
CREATE TABLE () (SELECT data FROM other_table ) ENGINE=CSV ;
When you create a CSV table, the server creates a table format file in the database directory. The file begins with the table name and has an .frm extension. The storage engine also creates a data file. Its name begins with the table name and has a .CSV extension. The data file is a plain text file. When you store data into the table, the storage engine saves it into the data file in comma-separated values format.
This answer uses Python and a popular third party library, PyMySQL. I'm adding it because Python's csv library is powerful enough to correctly handle many different flavors of .csv and no other answers are using Python code to interact with the database.
import contextlib
import csv
import datetime
import os
# https://github.com/PyMySQL/PyMySQL
import pymysql
SQL_QUERY = """
SELECT * FROM my_table WHERE my_attribute = 'my_attribute';
"""
# embedding passwords in code gets nasty when you use version control
# the environment is not much better, but this is an example
# https://stackguides.com/questions/12461484
SQL_USER = os.environ['SQL_USER']
SQL_PASS = os.environ['SQL_PASS']
connection = pymysql.connect(host='localhost',
user=SQL_USER,
password=SQL_PASS,
db='dbname')
with contextlib.closing(connection):
with connection.cursor() as cursor:
cursor.execute(SQL_QUERY)
# Hope you have enough memory :)
results = cursor.fetchall()
output_file = 'my_query-{}.csv'.format(datetime.datetime.today().strftime('%Y-%m-%d'))
with open(output_file, 'w', newline='') as csvfile:
# http://stackoverflow.com/a/17725590/2958070 about lineterminator
csv_writer = csv.writer(csvfile, lineterminator='\n')
csv_writer.writerows(results)
This is simple, and it works on anything without needing batch mode or output files:
select concat_ws(',',
concat('"', replace(field1, '"', '""'), '"'),
concat('"', replace(field2, '"', '""'), '"'),
concat('"', replace(field3, '"', '""'), '"'))
from your_table where etc;
Explanation:
" with "" in each field --> replace(field1, '"', '""')concat('"', result1, '"')concat_ws(',', quoted1, quoted2, ...)That's it!
I encountered the same problem and Paul's Answer wasn't an option since it was RDS. Replacing the tab with the commas did not work as the data had embedded commas & tabs. I found that the mycli which is a drop-in alternative for the mysql-client supports csv output outof the box with the --csv flag
mycli db_name --csv -e "select * from flowers" > flowers.csv
To expand on previous answers, the following one-liner exports a single table as a tab-separated file. It's suitable for automation, exporting the database every day or so.
mysql -B -D mydatabase -e 'select * from mytable'
Conveniently, we can use the same technique to list out MySQL's tables, and to describe the fields on a single table:
mysql -B -D mydatabase -e 'show tables'
mysql -B -D mydatabase -e 'desc users'
Field Type Null Key Default Extra
id int(11) NO PRI NULL auto_increment
email varchar(128) NO UNI NULL
lastName varchar(100) YES NULL
title varchar(128) YES UNI NULL
userName varchar(128) YES UNI NULL
firstName varchar(100) YES NULL
Building on user7610, here is the best way to do it. With mysql outfile there were 60 mins of file ownership and overwriting problems.
It's not cool, but it worked in 5 mins.
php csvdump.php localhost root password database tablename > whatever-you-like.csv
<?php
$server = $argv[1];
$user = $argv[2];
$password = $argv[3];
$db = $argv[4];
$table = $argv[5];
mysql_connect($server, $user, $password) or die(mysql_error());
mysql_select_db($db) or die(mysql_error());
// fetch the data
$rows = mysql_query('SELECT * FROM ' . $table);
$rows || die(mysql_error());
// create a file pointer connected to the output stream
$output = fopen('php://output', 'w');
// output the column headings
$fields = [];
for($i = 0; $i < mysql_num_fields($rows); $i++) {
$field_info = mysql_fetch_field($rows, $i);
$fields[] = $field_info->name;
}
fputcsv($output, $fields);
// loop over the rows, outputting them
while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($rows)) fputcsv($output, $row);
?>
Not exactly as a CSV format, but tee command from MySQL client can be used to save the output into a local file:
tee foobar.txt
SELECT foo FROM bar;
You can disable it using notee.
The problem with SELECT … INTO OUTFILE …; is that it requires permission to write files at the server.
What worked for me:
SELECT *
FROM students
WHERE foo = 'bar'
LIMIT 0,1200000
INTO OUTFILE './students-1200000.csv'
FIELDS TERMINATED BY ',' ESCAPED BY '"'
ENCLOSED BY '"'
LINES TERMINATED BY '\r\n';
None of the solutions on this thread worked for my particular case, I had pretty json data inside one of the columns, which would get messed up in my csv output. For those with a similar problem, try lines terminated by \r\n instead.
Also another problem for those trying to open the csv with Microsoft Excel, keep in mind there is a limit of 32,767 characters that a single cell can hold, above that it overflows to the rows below. To identify which records in a column have the issue, use the query below. You can then truncate those records or handle them as you'd like.
SELECT id,name,CHAR_LENGTH(json_student_description) AS 'character length'
FROM students
WHERE CHAR_LENGTH(json_student_description)>32767;
Using the solution posted by Tim, I created this bash script to facilitate the process (root password is requested, but you can modify the script easily to ask for any other user):
#!/bin/bash
if [ "$1" == "" ];then
echo "Usage: $0 DATABASE TABLE [MYSQL EXTRA COMMANDS]"
exit
fi
DBNAME=$1
TABLE=$2
FNAME=$1.$2.csv
MCOMM=$3
echo "MySQL password:"
stty -echo
read PASS
stty echo
mysql -uroot -p$PASS $MCOMM $DBNAME -B -e "SELECT * FROM $TABLE;" | sed "s/'/\'/;s/\t/\",\"/g;s/^/\"/;s/$/\"/;s/\n//g" > $FNAME
It will create a file named: database.table.csv
If you have PHP set up on the server, you can use mysql2csv to export an (actually valid) CSV file for an abitrary mysql query. See my answer at MySQL - SELECT * INTO OUTFILE LOCAL ? for a little more context/info.
I tried to maintain the option names from mysql so it should be sufficient to provide the --file and --query options:
./mysql2csv --file="/tmp/result.csv" --query='SELECT 1 as foo, 2 as bar;' --user="username" --password="password"
"Install" mysql2csv via
wget https://gist.githubusercontent.com/paslandau/37bf787eab1b84fc7ae679d1823cf401/raw/29a48bb0a43f6750858e1ddec054d3552f3cbc45/mysql2csv -O mysql2csv -q && (sha256sum mysql2csv | cmp <(echo "b109535b29733bd596ecc8608e008732e617e97906f119c66dd7cf6ab2865a65 mysql2csv") || (echo "ERROR comparing hash, Found:" ;sha256sum mysql2csv) ) && chmod +x mysql2csv
(download content of the gist, check checksum and make it executable).
The following produces tab-delimited and valid CSV output. Unlike most of the other answers, this technique correctly handles escaping of tabs, commas, quotes, and new lines without any stream filter like sed, awk, or tr. The example shows how to pipe a remote mysql table directly into a local sqlite database using streams. This works without FILE permission or SELECT INTO OUTFILE permission. I have added new lines for readability.
mysql -B -C --raw -u 'username' --password='password' --host='hostname' 'databasename'
-e 'SELECT
CONCAT('\''"'\'',REPLACE(`id`,'\''"'\'', '\''""'\''),'\''"'\'') AS '\''id'\'',
CONCAT('\''"'\'',REPLACE(`value`,'\''"'\'', '\''""'\''),'\''"'\'') AS '\''value'\''
FROM sampledata'
2>/dev/null | sqlite3 -csv -separator $'\t' mydb.db '.import /dev/stdin mycsvtable'
The 2>/dev/null is needed to suppress the warning about the password on the command line.
If your data has NULLs, you can use the IFNULL() function in the query.
If you are getting an error of secure-file-priv then, also after shifting your destination file location inside the C:\ProgramData\MySQL\MySQL Server 8.0\Uploads and also after then the query-
SELECT * FROM attendance INTO OUTFILE 'C:\ProgramData\MySQL\MySQL Server 8.0\Uploads\FileName.csv' FIELDS TERMINATED BY ',' ENCLOSED BY '"' LINES TERMINATED BY '\n';
is not working, you have to just change \(backsplash) from the query to / (forwardsplash)
And that works !!
Example:
SELECT * FROM attendance INTO OUTFILE 'C:/ProgramData/MySQL/MySQL Server 8.0/Uploads/FileName.csv' FIELDS TERMINATED BY ',' ENCLOSED BY '"' LINES TERMINATED BY '\n';
Each time when you run the successful query, it will generate the new csv file each time! Cool Right?
In my case from table_name ..... before INTO OUTFILE ..... gives an error(Unexpected ordering of clauses. (near "FROM" at position 10)).
What works for me.
SELECT *
INTO OUTFILE '/Volumes/Development/sql/sql/enabled_contacts.csv'
FIELDS TERMINATED BY ','
ENCLOSED BY '"'
LINES TERMINATED BY '\n'
FROM table_name
WHERE column_name = 'value'
Tiny bash script for doing simple query to CSV dumps, inspired by https://stackoverflow.com/a/5395421/2841607.
#!/bin/bash
# $1 = query to execute
# $2 = outfile
# $3 = mysql database name
# $4 = mysql username
if [ -z "$1" ]; then
echo "Query not given"
exit 1
fi
if [ -z "$2" ]; then
echo "Outfile not given"
exit 1
fi
MYSQL_DB=""
MYSQL_USER="root"
if [ ! -z "$3" ]; then
MYSQL_DB=$3
fi
if [ ! -z "$4" ]; then
MYSQL_USER=$4
fi
if [ -z "$MYSQL_DB" ]; then
echo "Database name not given"
exit 1
fi
if [ -z "$MYSQL_USER" ]; then
echo "Database user not given"
exit 1
fi
mysql -u $MYSQL_USER -p -D $MYSQL_DB -B -s -e "$1" | sed "s/'/\'/;s/\t/\",\"/g;s/^/\"/;s/$/\"/;s/\n//g" > $2
echo "Written to $2"
The following bash script works for me. It optionally also gets the schema for the requested tables.
#!/bin/bash
#
# export mysql data to CSV
#https://stackguides.com/questions/356578/how-to-output-mysql-query-results-in-csv-format
#
#ansi colors
#http://www.csc.uvic.ca/~sae/seng265/fall04/tips/s265s047-tips/bash-using-colors.html
blue='\033[0;34m'
red='\033[0;31m'
green='\033[0;32m' # '\e[1;32m' is too bright for white bg.
endColor='\033[0m'
#
# a colored message
# params:
# 1: l_color - the color of the message
# 2: l_msg - the message to display
#
color_msg() {
local l_color="$1"
local l_msg="$2"
echo -e "${l_color}$l_msg${endColor}"
}
#
# error
#
# show the given error message on stderr and exit
#
# params:
# 1: l_msg - the error message to display
#
error() {
local l_msg="$1"
# use ansi red for error
color_msg $red "Error:" 1>&2
color_msg $red "\t$l_msg" 1>&2
usage
}
#
# display usage
#
usage() {
echo "usage: $0 [-h|--help]" 1>&2
echo " -o | --output csvdirectory" 1>&2
echo " -d | --database database" 1>&2
echo " -t | --tables tables" 1>&2
echo " -p | --password password" 1>&2
echo " -u | --user user" 1>&2
echo " -hs | --host host" 1>&2
echo " -gs | --get-schema" 1>&2
echo "" 1>&2
echo " output: output csv directory to export mysql data into" 1>&2
echo "" 1>&2
echo " user: mysql user" 1>&2
echo " password: mysql password" 1>&2
echo "" 1>&2
echo " database: target database" 1>&2
echo " tables: tables to export" 1>&2
echo " host: host of target database" 1>&2
echo "" 1>&2
echo " -h|--help: show help" 1>&2
exit 1
}
#
# show help
#
help() {
echo "$0 Help" 1>&2
echo "===========" 1>&2
echo "$0 exports a csv file from a mysql database optionally limiting to a list of tables" 1>&2
echo " example: $0 --database=cms --user=scott --password=tiger --tables=person --output person.csv" 1>&2
echo "" 1>&2
usage
}
domysql() {
mysql --host $host -u$user --password=$password $database
}
getcolumns() {
local l_table="$1"
echo "describe $l_table" | domysql | cut -f1 | grep -v "Field" | grep -v "Warning" | paste -sd "," - 2>/dev/null
}
host="localhost"
mysqlfiles="/var/lib/mysql-files/"
# parse command line options
while true; do
#echo "option $1"
case "$1" in
# options without arguments
-h|--help) usage;;
-d|--database) database="$2" ; shift ;;
-t|--tables) tables="$2" ; shift ;;
-o|--output) csvoutput="$2" ; shift ;;
-u|--user) user="$2" ; shift ;;
-hs|--host) host="$2" ; shift ;;
-p|--password) password="$2" ; shift ;;
-gs|--get-schema) option="getschema";;
(--) shift; break;;
(-*) echo "$0: error - unrecognized option $1" 1>&2; usage;;
(*) break;;
esac
shift
done
# checks
if [ "$csvoutput" == "" ]
then
error "ouput csv directory not set"
fi
if [ "$database" == "" ]
then
error "mysql database not set"
fi
if [ "$user" == "" ]
then
error "mysql user not set"
fi
if [ "$password" == "" ]
then
error "mysql password not set"
fi
color_msg $blue "exporting tables of database $database"
if [ "$tables" = "" ]
then
tables=$(echo "show tables" | domysql)
fi
case $option in
getschema)
rm $csvoutput$database.schema
for table in $tables
do
color_msg $blue "getting schema for $table"
echo -n "$table:" >> $csvoutput$database.schema
getcolumns $table >> $csvoutput$database.schema
done
;;
*)
for table in $tables
do
color_msg $blue "exporting table $table"
cols=$(grep "$table:" $csvoutput$database.schema | cut -f2 -d:)
if [ "$cols" = "" ]
then
cols=$(getcolumns $table)
fi
ssh $host rm $mysqlfiles/$table.csv
cat <<EOF | mysql --host $host -u$user --password=$password $database
SELECT $cols FROM $table INTO OUTFILE '$mysqlfiles$table.csv'
FIELDS TERMINATED BY ','
ENCLOSED BY '"'
LINES TERMINATED BY '\n';
EOF
scp $host:$mysqlfiles/$table.csv $csvoutput$table.csv.raw
(echo "$cols"; cat $csvoutput$table.csv.raw) > $csvoutput$table.csv
rm $csvoutput$table.csv.raw
done
;;
esac
REPLACE()in your query to have the quotes escaped. – dsm