How to import data from text file to mysql database

Walkthrough on using MySQL's LOAD DATA command:

1. Create your table:

   CREATE TABLE foo(myid INT, mymessage VARCHAR(255), mydecimal DECIMAL(8,4));
   

2. Create your tab delimited file (note there are tabs between the columns):

   1   Heart disease kills     1.2
   2   one out of every two    2.3
   3   people in America.      4.5
   

3. Use the load data command:

   LOAD DATA LOCAL INFILE '/tmp/foo.txt' 
   INTO TABLE foo COLUMNS TERMINATED BY '\t';
   

   If you get a warning that this command can't be run, then you have to enable the --local-infile=1 parameter described here: How can I correct MySQL Load Error

4. The rows get inserted:

   Query OK, 3 rows affected (0.00 sec)
   Records: 3  Deleted: 0  Skipped: 0  Warnings: 0
   

5. Check if it worked:

   mysql> select * from foo;
   +------+----------------------+-----------+
   | myid | mymessage            | mydecimal |
   +------+----------------------+-----------+
   |    1 | Heart disease kills  |    1.2000 |
   |    2 | one out of every two |    2.3000 |
   |    3 | people in America.   |    4.5000 |
   +------+----------------------+-----------+
   3 rows in set (0.00 sec)
   

How to specify which columns to load your text file columns into:

Like this:

LOAD DATA LOCAL INFILE '/tmp/foo.txt' INTO TABLE foo
FIELDS TERMINATED BY '\t' LINES TERMINATED BY '\n'
(@col1,@col2,@col3) set myid=@col1,mydecimal=@col3;

The file contents get put into variables @col1, @col2, @col3. myid gets column 1, and mydecimal gets column 3. If this were run, it would omit the second row:

mysql> select * from foo;
+------+-----------+-----------+
| myid | mymessage | mydecimal |
+------+-----------+-----------+
|    1 | NULL      |    1.2000 |
|    2 | NULL      |    2.3000 |
|    3 | NULL      |    4.5000 |
+------+-----------+-----------+
3 rows in set (0.00 sec)

If your table is separated by others than tabs, you should specify it like...

LOAD DATA LOCAL 
    INFILE '/tmp/mydata.txt' INTO TABLE PerformanceReport 
    COLUMNS TERMINATED BY '\t'  ## This should be your delimiter
    OPTIONALLY ENCLOSED BY '"'; ## ...and if text is enclosed, specify here

It should be as simple as...

LOAD DATA INFILE '/tmp/mydata.txt' INTO TABLE PerformanceReport;

By default LOAD DATA INFILE uses tab delimited, one row per line, so should take it in just fine.