MySQL and files...

nobodythere

Does anyone know of any way to read a file using an SQL query?

There... short and simple

Thomas_S_Hunterson

SQL is for databases, and AFAIK, it can't be used to read "files", unless you import the files into the database as a table, which would probably defeat the point.

What sort of file is it?

nobodythere

Well for example, if I wanted to read a value into an entry in a table from a file, could it be done through SQL? I know MS-SQL let's you execute commands and all sorts of ****e but can't find the same about MYSQL

daymobrew

grasshopa wrote:

Well for example, if I wanted to read a value into an entry in a table from a file, could it be done through SQL?

MS-SQL might allow it because it knows that there is a cmd.exe or command.com shell that can invoke this but MySQL, being cross-platform, wouldn't know how to execute the commands. Or something like that.

Could you write a script to extract the value from the file and the script would then run the SQL query (using mysql command line interface)?

PhantomBeaker

Well, you can populate a database or table or whatever by putting a lot of SQL queries into a file and then invoking

"mysql < sqlfile" (and put in whatever user/auth command-line options you need to)

That'll execute all the SQL commands in that file.

Is that what you need?

Aoife

Cantab.

Yes, MySQL supports databases of files. Just look at the documentation.

You need to make sure that the MySQL server is configured so as to allow file handling.

If file handling is not available, you could just have a database of paths+filenames stored as text elements. Store all the files in a directory and access them via the path+filename stored as a text element in your MySQL database.

I think it's quicker to do it this way than have a database of files, but I might be wrong?

kdouglas

if it's a comma-seperated list of values, you could also possible use LOAD DATA INFILE

nobodythere

Thanks, ended up using the LOAD_FILE() function in the end.