AIR MySQL Data Import Tool

Apr 23, 2008

As they say necessity is the mother of all invention. In this case I need a simple tool to prep comma delimited files before importing them into a MySQL database. I had tried using the tools provided in PhpMyAdmin for importing csv and tab delimited text files without any luck. Each file required some tweaks for string delimiting, column names, etc. After a few hours of frustration I decided to create a tool to convert csv and tab delimited text files into import or update SQL statements, which can easily be used in any RDBMS. Download it here.

The import tool is super easy to use. First you select the csv or txt file you wish to import, set a few options for the import type, string delimiting and how to handle the column headers. Next you can view the columns contained in the file, you can edit the names to be used for the SQL statements and also exclude any columns from the import. Once the setup is complete you can run a quick preview to see how the data will look. If everything looks good you can generate a file that you can use in MySQL or any other RDBMS to import or update data. At any point after selecting the file to import you can also generate the sql file if you wish to skip the steps in between by clicking the 'finish' button.

Step 1 - Setup options

Step 2 - Column Setup

Step 3 - Import Preview

This is just the first pass at this tool, I'm sure there are a few bugs I have not run across yet, so please feel to try it out and report back on any bugs or issues you run across, or any features you  would like to see added.