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#1 (**permalink**) 02-28-2008, 09:10 AM

I'd like to import about 11 plain text files with between 5 to 30
comma delimited fields. Can I import these files into a new database
without having to design each table first? I don't mind doing it one
file at a time but I'm trying to avoid manually creating each table
for each file in mySQL. Thanks.

#2 (**permalink**) 02-28-2008, 09:11 AM

Pete wrote:

> I'd like to import about 11 plain text files with between 5 to 30
> comma delimited fields. Can I import these files into a new database
> without having to design each table first? I don't mind doing it one
> file at a time but I'm trying to avoid manually creating each table
> for each file in mySQL. Thanks.

is this a one-off or will you be loading 11 files from other sources on a
regular basis? do they tables already exist?

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/load-data.html

If you do not properly design a database - you might as well use spreadsheets or
even worse... MSAccess. Without a proper design, you will unnecessarily
duplicate information, have poor performance and waste programming time to make
all of the data fit together. There is a reason it is called "relational".
There must exist a relationship between tables. There are very few reasons to
have a table that does not have a relation to at least one other table.

--
Michael Austin
Database Consultant
Domain Registration and Linux/Windows Web Hosting Reseller
http://www.spacelots.com

#3 (**permalink**) 02-28-2008, 09:11 AM

On Sat, 17 Feb 2007 04:18:11 GMT, Michael Austin wrote:

> If you do not properly design a database - you might as well use
> spreadsheets or even worse... MSAccess.

I've imported data from spreadsheets and from Access. I'll take the
Access-sourced stuff most day, thank you...

> Without a proper design, you will unnecessarily duplicate information,
> have poor performance and waste programming time to make all of the
> data fit together. There is a reason it is called "relational". There
> must exist a relationship between tables. There are very few reasons
> to have a table that does not have a relation to at least one other
> table.

Sure there are! We call them "grocery lists".

--
Premature optimization is the root of all evil.
-- Sir Tony Hoare

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Simple import of comma delimited files