MySQL Cookbook

Specifying the Datafile Format

Problem

You have a datafile that’s not in LOAD DATA’s default format.

Solution

Use FIELDS and LINES clauses to tell LOAD DATA how to interpret the file.

Discussion

By default, LOAD DATA assumes that datafiles contain lines that are terminated by linefeeds (newlines) and that data values within a line are separated by tabs. The following statement does not specify anything about the format of the datafile, so MySQL assumes the default format:

mysql> LOAD DATA LOCAL INFILE 'mytbl.txt' INTO TABLE mytbl;

To specify a file format explicitly, use a FIELDS clause to describe the characteristics of fields within a line, and a LINES clause to specify the line-ending sequence. The following LOAD DATA statement specifies that the datafile contains values separated by colons and lines terminated by carriage returns:

mysql> LOAD DATA LOCAL INFILE 'mytbl.txt' INTO TABLE mytbl
    -> FIELDS TERMINATED BY ':'
    -> LINES TERMINATED BY '\r';

Each clause follows the table name. If both are present, the FIELDS clause must precede the LINES clause. The line and field termination indicators can contain multiple characters. For example, \r\n indicates that lines are terminated by carriage return/linefeed pairs.

If you use mysqlimport, command-line options provide the format specifiers. mysqlimport commands that correspond to the preceding two LOAD DATA statements look like this:

% mysqlimport --local cookbook mytbl.txt
% mysqlimport --local --fields-terminated-by=":" --lines-terminated-by="\r" ...