Bulk Insert in SQL

Example of Bulk Insert in SQL

In this section, we will look at an example of the Bulk Insert Operation in SQL to understand the steps required in this operation.

Create a Database

The first step is to start MySQL and then create a database. In this example, we will create a database named "test_db."
 

Code

CREATE DATABASE test_db;

Output

Select the Database

After we have created the database, we need to select the database by using the following command.
 

Code

USE test_db;

Output

Create a Table 

After creating the database, we need to make the table where we want to bulk insert the data. In this example, we will create a table named AGENTS and store their Agent Code, Agent Name, and Working Area.

Code

CREATE TABLE AGENTS(
    AGENT_CODE CHAR(6) NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY,
    AGENT_NAME CHAR(40),
    WORKING_AREA CHAR(35)
);

Output

Bulk Insert the Data

So now that we have created the table, the last step is to select the file from which we want to input the data and Bulk insert it in the table using the correct syntax discussed above.
 

Code

BULK INSERT AGENTS
FROM '/home/aayush/Downloads/DATA - Sheet1.csv'
WITH (
    FIELDTERMINATOR =',',
    ROWTERMINATOR='\n',
    FIRSTROW=2
);

Output

Best practices while using Bulk Insert

Bulk Insert is a handy function for inserting a large amount of data in a table into SQL from a particular file into a table in SQL. Below are some of the best practices we should remember while using Bulk Insert in SQL.

• Split into smaller parts - Generally, it is advised that we should split our datasets into smaller pieces to avoid processing massive data and reduce the failure of the transaction.
   
• System Monitoring - We should also monitor system resources like CPU usage, Memory Usage, etc. A situation might happen where the data inserted in the Bulk operation is more than the available space.
   
• Backup Options - We should always keep a backup or a checkpoint in case we want to roll back to a previous checkpoint.
   
• Validate data - Before starting the Bulk insert operation, we should validate the legitimacy of the data. If Incorrect data is inserted, we must find the incorrect entries and remove them from the database.
   
• Parallel Processing - We can also distribute the insert operation across multiple processors in a system and achieve parallelism.

Frequently Asked Questions

How does Bulk Insert improve performance?

The Bulk Insert operation minimizes the overhead of one-by-one insertion of the data entries. This is because the Bulk Insert does not take data entries individually but loads them all at once.

Can we use Bulk Insert for real-time processing?

We can use Bulk Insert for real-time processing, but it is generally used for batch processing. This is because, in real-time processing, we do not know the batch size in which data is coming.

Is it possible to transfer data between different database platforms like Oracle?

The Bulk Operation is specially designed to be used in the SQL Server. Hence we can't use it to transfer data across multiple platforms. But we can use third-party ETL tools to share data across platforms.

Conclusion

In this article, we discussed Bulk Insert in SQL. We discussed the Bulk Insert function's syntax, parameters, and return type. We also discussed an example of the Bulk Insert function and its ode implementation. In the end, we concluded by discussing some best practices to keep in mind while using Bulk Insert in SQL and some frequently asked questions.

So now that you know about Bulk Insert in SQL, you can refer to similar articles.

• Sql functions
   
• SQL Introduction
   
• SQL Problems
   
• SQL Server Basics

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