Importing CSV files

I'm somewhat new to SQL. I had a previous version in which I could select Import, choose CSV then It would allow me to map the fields from my CSV file to the Sql database. first, I don't see that option in this program. Second, I can't seem to import anything at all. What am I doing wrong?

Simply chose "Import/Export" -> "Import Textfile" and try.

I've tried the import text file. It doesn't work. Does it matter that my field names in the CSV file are different from the database field names? This is why I was hoping I could map the fields.

What means "it doesnt work" ? Where? What exactly happens?

With "field names in your CSV-file" I guess you mean the cells in the first line of the file. It doesn't matter how they are named, but in fact it does matter how many columns the CSV-file has. You have to manually sort and (un-)check the columns in the listbox to reflect the structure of your CSV-file. There is no automatism yet which does this job for you.

Maybe this is a future thing for HeidiSQL. As I overthink that, I find that's a cool feature which should be posted to http://rfe.heidisql.com/ .

I'm kind of wrestling with the same issue except that all i need to know is what do I put in the "Lines:" "terminated by" to let it know to start the next line? I'm assuming I would want to have a return here? What do I enter in the box that represents a "return"?

Okay i figured out how to get the import to happen using a comma delimited file but how do I handle a file that has text in fields that also have commas in the sentence? I'm using Excel and i'm sure there is a way to tell it to use something other than a comma for field seperation? Any helpful clues?

excel probably gives a really good example when you export to (save as) CSV ... :roll:

anyways, you'll have to enclose the values of a field with a special symbol .. for example the " (quote). and whenever this symbol appears as part of the value, you have to escape it with another symbol .. for example the \

"this is \"an\" example", "and this another one"


and i'm not sure if you had figured this out, be a return can be either \r\n, \r or \n, depending on which platform you are (window, mac, linux)

Thanks for your little lesson in db 101. I'm just getting this stuff figured out and this program has been very helpful with the process. :D

Did some looking into Excel to figure out how to use something other than a comma for field ending and could not find anything. But I discovered Open Office in the process which gives you the option select what character you want to use.

excel automatically compensates for commas by enclosing them between quotes, when saving it as a CSV file

But, don't let stop you from Calc (Open Office)! It's much better the MS Office :)