Importing a csv into mysql via command line

Question

I'm trying to import a very large .csv file (~4gb) into mysql. I was considering using phpmyadmin, but then you have a max upload size of 2mb. Someone told me that I have to use the command line.

I was going to use these directions to import it: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/mysqlimport.html#c5680

What would be the command to set the first row in the .csv table as the column names in the mysql table? This option is available through phpmyadmin, so their must be a mysql command line version too, right?. Please help me. Thank you.

-Raj

Answer 1

Try this command

 load data local infile 'file.csv' into table table
 fields terminated by ','
 enclosed by '"'
 lines terminated by '\n'
 (column1, column2, column3,...)

The fields here are the actual table fields that the data needs to sit in. The enclosed by and lines terminated by are optional and can help if you have columns enclosed with double-quotes such as Excel exports, etc.

For further details check the manual.

For setting the first row as the table column names, just ignore the row from being read and add the values in the command.

Answer 2

try this:

mysql -uusername -ppassword --local-infile scrapping -e "LOAD DATA LOCAL INFILE 'CSVname.csv'  INTO TABLE table_name  FIELDS TERMINATED BY ',' LINES TERMINATED BY '\n'"

Answer 3

You could do a

mysqlimport --columns='head -n 1 $yourfile' --ignore-lines=1 dbname $yourfile`

That is, if your file is comma separated and is not semi-colon separated. Else you might need to sed through it too.

Answer 4

You can simply import by

mysqlimport --ignore-lines=1 --lines-terminated-by='\n' --fields-terminated-by=',' --fields-enclosed-by='"' --verbose --local -uroot -proot db_name csv_import.csv

Note: Csv File name and Table name should be same

Answer 5

For importing csv with a header row using mysqlimport, just add

--ignore-lines=N

(ignores the first N lines of the data file)

This option is described in the page you've linked.

Answer 6

You can put it in the following way:

LOAD DATA LOCAL INFILE 'C:/Users/userName/Downloads/tableName.csv' INTO TABLE tableName FIELDS TERMINATED BY ',' LINES TERMINATED BY '\n';

Answer 7

Another option is to use the csvsql command from the csvkit library.

Example usage directly on command line:

csvsql --db mysql:///test --tables yourtable --insert yourfile.csv

This can be executed directly on the command line, or built into a python or shell script for automation if you need to do this for a number of files.

csvsql allows you to create database tables on the fly based on the structure of your csv, so it is a lite-code way of getting the first row of your csv to automagically be cast as the MySQL table header.

Full documentation and further examples here: https://csvkit.readthedocs.io/en/1.0.3/scripts/csvsql.html

Answer 8

I know this says command line, but just a tidbit of something quick to try that might work, if you've got MySQL workbench and the csv isn't too large, you can simply

• SELECT * FROM table
• Copy entire CSV
• Paste csv into the query results section of Workbench
• Hope for the best

I say hope for the best because this is MySQL Workbench. You never know when it's going to explode

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If you want to do this on a remote server, you would do

mysql -h<server|ip> -u<username> -p --local-infile bark -e "LOAD DATA LOCAL INFILE '<filename.csv>'  INTO TABLE <table>  FIELDS TERMINATED BY ',' LINES TERMINATED BY '\n'"

Note, I didn't put a password after -p as putting one on the command line is considered bad practice

Answer 9

Most answers missing an important point like if you have created csv file exported from Microsoft Excel on windows and importing the same in linux environment, you will get unexpected result.

the correct syntax would be

load data local infile 'file.csv' into table table fields terminated by ',' enclosed by '"' lines terminated by '\r\n'

here the difference is '\r\n' as against simply '\n