Introduction

---

The SQL IMPORT TABLE statement is used to import data from delimited text file into a table.

Syntax

---

IMPORT TABLE [IF EXISTS] table_reference

FROM text_file_name

[DELIMITER delimiter_character]

[WITH HEADERS]

[COLUMNS (column_name [, column_name])]

[DATE date_format]
[TIME time_format]
[DECIMAL decimal_separator]

Use the IMPORT TABLE statement to import data into a table from a delimited text file specified by the FROM clause. The file name must be enclosed in double quotes ("") or square brackets ([]) if it contains a drive, path, or file extension. Use the EXCLUSIVE keyword to specify that the table should be opened exclusively.

DELIMITER Clause

---

The DELIMITER clause is optional and specifies the delimiter character used in the imported text file to separate data from different columns. The DELIMITER character should be specified as a single character constant enclosed in single quotes ('') or specified using the pound (#) sign and the ASCII character value. The default delimiter character is the comma (,).

WITH HEADERS Clause

---

The WITH HEADERS clause is optional and specifies that the imported text file contains column headers for all columns as the first row. In such a case DBISAM will not import this row as a record but will instead ignore it.

COLUMNS Clause

---

The columns clause is optional and specifies a comma-separated list of columns that the imported text file contains. If the imported text file contains column data in a different order than that of the table, or only a subset of column data, then it is very important that this clause be used. Also, the column names specified here must conform to the column naming conventions for DBISAM's SQL and must exist in the table being exported. Please see the Naming Conventions topic for more information.

DATE, TIME, and DECIMAL Clauses

---

The DATE, TIME, and DECIMAL clauses are optional and specify the formats and decimal separator that should be used when importing dates, times, timestamps, and numbers from the text file. The DATE and TIME formats should be specified as string constants enclosed in single quotes ('') and the DECIMAL separator should be specified as a single character constant enclosed in single quotes ('') or specified using the pound (#) sign and the ASCII character value. The default date format is 'yyyy-mm-dd', the default time format is 'hh:mm:ss.zzz ampm', and the default decimal separator is '.'.

The statement below imports three fields from a file called 'employee.txt' into the Employee table:

IMPORT TABLE Employee
FROM "c:\mydata\employee.txt"
WITH HEADERS
COLUMNS (ID, FirstName, LastName)

Please see the Importing and Exporting Tables and Query Result Sets topic for more information on importing tables.