Understanding BCP

BULK COPY (BCP) offers a command-line alternative to the SQL Server Import And Export Wizard. The Transact-SQL counterpart to BCP import is BULK INSERT. You will find that BULK INSERT has a similar syntax when used for importing data. To learn more about BCP, we will examine its features:

  • Basics

  • Syntax

  • Permissions

  • Modes

  • Importing data

  • Exporting data

BCP Basics

BCP may continue to be a favorite of database administrators because of its great performance and minimal overhead. You will find that import and export processes tend to be very fast and that BCP requires very little memory to operate. BCP does not have a graphical user interface (GUI) and is best used in two situations:

  • To import data from a text file to a single SQL Server table ...

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