Bcp format file sqlchar

The following example format file for a table with 5 columns includes the collation. Therefore, if you generate a format file, you must manually delete the collation info from the generated format file before you start importing data back into SQL Server. The following is an example of the format file without the collation info. The format option always requires the -f option, and to create an XML format file, you must also specify the -x option, such as:.

To distinguish an XML format file, we recommend that you use. This section contains the following examples that show how to use bcp commands to create an XML format file:. Adventure Works Cycles is a fictional manufacturing company used to demonstrate database concepts and scenarios. As created by bcp , a format file describes all the table columns in order.

You can modify a format file to rearrange or omit table rows. This lets you customize a format file to a data file whose fields do not map directly to the table columns. For more information, see the following topics:.

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The following image is copied from the link. I just want to make a few points here. Now to generate a non-XML format file, here is the "algorithm" please refer to Figure 1 for component names in the format file. We also need to design the input parameters to generate a desired non-XML format file and this is actually simple and straight-forward. Note those 'xyz' strings are just a place holder for columns that do not have corresponding source fields. Actually, you can put any string there.

This tip provides a quick way to generate a customized BCP format file when you need to extract a few source fields into a few columns of a target table.

It currently only deals with ASCII type source file, which is arguably the most common type, not the native format source file. The column names supplied must be valid column names in the destination table. By default, bcp assumes the data file is unordered. For optimized bulk import, SQL Server also validates that the imported data is sorted. Used when -b is not specified, resulting in the entire data file being sent to the server as a single transaction.

The server optimizes the bulkload according to the value bb. TABLOCK Specifies that a bulk update table-level lock is acquired for the duration of the bulkload operation; otherwise, a row-level lock is acquired. This hint significantly improves performance because holding a lock for the duration of the bulk-copy operation reduces lock contention on the table.

By default, locking behavior is determined by the table option table lock on bulkload. If the target table is clustered columnstore index, TABLOCK hint is not required for loading by multiple concurrent clients because each concurrent thread is assigned a separate rowgroup within the index and loads data into it.

Please refer to columnstore index conceptual topics for details,. At some point, you will need to check the constraints on the entire table.

If the table was nonempty before the bulk import operation, the cost of revalidating the constraint may exceed the cost of applying CHECK constraints to the incremental data. Therefore, we recommend that normally you enable constraint checking during an incremental bulk import. A situation in which you might want constraints disabled the default behavior is if the input data contains rows that violate constraints. The only value that is possible is ReadOnly.

If -K is not specified, the bcp utility will not support connectivity to a secondary replica in an Always On availability group. The -l option specifies the number of seconds before a login to SQL Server times out when you try to connect to a server. The default login timeout is 15 seconds. The login timeout must be a number between 0 and If the value supplied is not numeric or does not fall into that range, bcp generates an error message.

A value of 0 specifies an infinite timeout. In the absence of this parameter, the default is the last row of the file. A syntax error implies a data conversion error to the target data type. A row that cannot be copied by the bcp utility is ignored and is counted as one error. If this option is not included, the default is The -m option also does not apply to converting the money or bigint data types.

This option does not prompt for each field; it uses the native values. This option offers a higher performance alternative to the -w option, and is intended for transferring data from one instance of SQL Server to another using a data file. It does not prompt for each field. Use this option when you are transferring data that contains ANSI extended characters and you want to take advantage of the performance of native mode. If you export and then import data to the same table schema by using bcp.

The warning can be ignored. One way to resolve this warning is to use -n instead of -N. If this option is not used, the bcp command prompts for a password. If this option is used at the end of the command prompt without a password, bcp uses the default password NULL. To mask your password, do not specify the -P option along with the -U option.

Instead, after specifying bcp along with the -U option and other switches do not specify -P , press ENTER, and the command will prompt you for a password. This method ensures that your password will be masked when it is entered. Use this option to specify a database, owner, table, or view name that contains a space or a single quotation mark. Enclose the entire three-part table or view name in quotation marks "". To specify a database name that contains a space or single quotation mark, you must use the -q option.

For more information, see Remarks , later in this topic. Use this parameter to override the default row terminator. If you specify the row terminator in hexadecimal notation in a bcp. For example, if you specify 0x, 0x41 will be used.

By default, regional settings are ignored. If no server is specified, the bcp utility connects to the default instance of SQL Server on the local computer. This option is required when a bcp command is run from a remote computer on the network or a local named instance. Use this parameter to override the default field terminator. If you specify the field terminator in hexadecimal notation in a bcp.

If -T is not specified, you need to specify -U and -P to successfully log in. When the bcp utility is connecting to SQL Server with a trusted connection using integrated security, use the -T option trusted connection instead of the user name and password combination.

Use the -U and -P options. This option does not prompt for each field; it uses the default values. For example, to generate data for types not supported by SQL Server 8. The -x does not work when importing or exporting data. The bcp If tools are installed for multiple versions of SQL Server, depending on the order of values of the PATH environment variable, you might be using the earlier bcp client instead of the bcp This environment variable defines the set of directories used by Windows to search for executable files.

To make sure the newest version of the bcp utility is running you need to remove any older versions of the bcp utility. For information about where to find or how to run the bcp utility and about the command prompt utilities syntax conventions, see Command Prompt Utility Reference Database Engine.

For information about when row-insert operations that are performed by bulk import are logged in the transaction log, see Prerequisites for Minimal Logging in Bulk Import. Using additional special characters. If you use quotation marks to enclose a string that contains one of the special characters, the quotation marks are set as part of the environment variable value. Values in the data file being imported for computed or timestamp columns are ignored, and SQL Server automatically assigns values.

If the data file does not contain values for the computed or timestamp columns in the table, use a format file to specify that the computed or timestamp columns in the table should be skipped when importing data; SQL Server automatically assigns values for the column. Computed and timestamp columns are bulk copied from SQL Server to a data file as usual. SQL Server identifiers can include characters such as embedded spaces and quotation marks.

Such identifiers must be treated as follows:.