Bulk Insert

snufse · December 11th, 2007, 02:24 PM

I have difficulties with bulk insert.

If I have a .txt file with 1 element per row it work fine, see below:

SP:

Code:

CREATE procedure MyTest
as
CREATE TABLE    Test
        (
            jobnumber char(15)
                    )
DECLARE @SQL varchar(2000),
    @PathFileName varchar(200)
set @PathFileName = 'c:\yak.txt'
BULK INSERT Test
FROM 'c:\yak.txt' WITH ( FIELDTERMINATOR = ',', DATAFILETYPE =
'char')
EXEC (@SQL)
select * from Test
GO

.TXT Table:
ABCDEFGHIJKLMN
CCCCCCCCC
BBBB
MMMMMMMMM

Now I add a 2nd field to my table (jobphase) and change my .txt table as well, it does not work:

SP:

Code:

CREATE procedure MyTest
as
CREATE TABLE    Test
        (
            jobnumber char(15),
            jobphase char(15)
        )
DECLARE @SQL varchar(2000),
    @PathFileName varchar(200)
set @PathFileName = 'c:\yak.txt'
BULK INSERT Test
FROM 'c:\yak.txt' WITH ( FIELDTERMINATOR = ',', DATAFILETYPE =
'char')
EXEC (@SQL)
select * from Test
GO

.TXT table:
ABCDEFGHIJKLMN,AAAAAAAA,
CCCCCCCCC,GGGGGGGGG,
BBBB,TTTTTTTTT,
MMMMMMMMM,YYYYYYYY,

Get error:
Server: Msg 4832, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
Bulk Insert: Unexpected end-of-file (EOF) encountered in data file.
Server: Msg 7399, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
OLE DB provider 'STREAM' reported an error. The provider did not give any information about the error.
The statement has been terminated.

Peso · December 11th, 2007, 04:25 PM

You have THREE columns in the textfile!
The last column is empty but still there.

snufse · December 11th, 2007, 04:42 PM

I've tried both with 2 columns (one comma) and 3 colums (two commas). No matter what I do I get the error described above...

ABCDEFGHIJKLMN,AAAAAAAA
CCCCCCCCC,GGGGGGGGG
BBBB,TTTTTTTTT
MMMMMMMMM,YYYYYYYY

but it still does not fly.....

snufse · December 11th, 2007, 05:08 PM

Here is a simple test that does not work and gives error (run i qry analyzer)

CREATE TABLE Names
(
Firstname varchar(20),
Surname varchar(20)
)

BULK INSERT Names FROM 'c:\names.txt'

File:
John Greed
Kevin Heath

Server: Msg 4832, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
Bulk Insert: Unexpected end-of-file (EOF) encountered in data file.
Server: Msg 7399, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
OLE DB provider 'STREAM' reported an error. The provider did not give any information about the error.
The statement has been terminated.

SQLScott · December 11th, 2007, 05:19 PM

You can't do it that way. Your table has two columns and you are deliniating the text in the file at all. For example, try this, it works:

File:
JohnGreed
KevinHeath

CREATE TABLE Names
(
Firstname varchar(20)
)

BULK INSERT Names FROM 'c:\names.txt'

select * from Names

drop table Names

If you are specifying more than one column, you need to provide it MUCH more information that just "hey, here's a file for my bulk insert".

Look in BOL for Bulk Insert. That, plus the above example, should get you started.

========================
Scott Klein
Author of:
Professional SQL Server 2005 XML
Professional WCF Programming: .NET Development with the Windows Communication Foundation
Professional LINQ
========================

SQLScott · December 11th, 2007, 05:23 PM

Here is your answer:

File:
John Greed
Kevin Heath

CREATE TABLE Names
(
Firstname varchar(20),
LastName varchar(20)
)

BULK INSERT Names FROM 'c:\names.txt' WITH (FIELDTERMINATOR = ' ')

select * from Names

drop table Names

========================
Scott Klein
Author of:
Professional SQL Server 2005 XML
Professional WCF Programming: .NET Development with the Windows Communication Foundation
Professional LINQ
========================

snufse · December 11th, 2007, 05:45 PM

Scott:
Using your first example it created this (using 1 data element). I just have 3 records in the text file so why did it code insert a "Null" in line 4 and 5"?

JohnGreed
KevinHeath
TimBarker
NULL
NULL

After this I tried with 2 fields and field terminator = ' ', gives me the same error, for some reason it does not like fieldterminators......

SQLScott · December 11th, 2007, 08:45 PM

OK, first things first. You are getting the NULL lines because you have extra lines AFTER TimBarker. Open up your text document and press CTRL+END. I'll bet you $$ that your cursor is now 2 or 3 lines BELOW TimBarker. This means that you probably pressed the ENTER key (a hard return) after you entered the TimBarker entry.

So, press the Backspace or Delete key until the cursor is now blinking next to the last "r" in TimBarker. Now rerun the T-SQL code and you'll only get the three names with no NULL values.

Now, the FIELDTERMINATOR parameter looks for exactly the value you pass (a space, comma, etc). If you use the FIELDTERMINATOR parameter with the following:

JohnGreed
KevinHeath
TimBarker

and then use the FIELDTERMINATOR parameter with a Space as a delimiter, your results will be very wrong.

Try this:

File:
John,Greed
Kevin,Heath

CREATE TABLE Names
(
  Firstname varchar(20),
    LastName varchar(20)
)

BULK INSERT Names FROM 'c:\names.txt' WITH (FIELDTERMINATOR = ',')

select * from Names

drop table Names

Make sense? Experiment some more, such as the following:

File:
JohnGreed,
KevinHeath

CREATE TABLE Names
(
  Firstname varchar(20)
)

BULK INSERT Names FROM 'c:\names.txt' WITH (FIELDTERMINATOR = ',')

select * from Names

drop table Names

========================
Scott Klein
Author of:
Professional SQL Server 2005 XML
Professional WCF Programming: .NET Development with the Windows Communication Foundation
Professional LINQ
========================

snufse · December 11th, 2007, 10:20 PM

Thank you Scott, it worked.

Peso · December 17th, 2007, 07:53 AM

Also see this detaild answer.
http://www.sqlteam.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=93981