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oufan222
Starting Member
6 Posts |
 Posted - 2010-03-22 : 10:45:36
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| I'm new to SQL Server, but I have been reading all I can find on the topic for the past few months. The one topic that doesn't appear to be covered in great detail is importing data. I was hoping to get some advice on this topic from users in the forum.Specifically, I have several tab delimited files for task data that I want to import into a SQL DB table named RECORDS. Each task data record has a string representing the type of the record that is always greater than 10 characters. Since there are only five unique TASK_TYPE strings, I've read that it is better to save the task type field data in another table (named TASK_TYPE) that has two columns: a auto-increment ID and the task type as a string. The auto-inc ID is then used as a foreign key to the task type field in the RECORDS table. This will help considerably with the size of the database. However, I now don't understand how to update and/or import records that are in the RECORDS table. What is the best way to import and update data in the RECORDS table, realizing the the task_type column in the RECORDS table will really be a "pointer" to a unique string in the TASK_TYPE table?Thanks in advance for any help! |
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webfred
Master Smack Fu Yak Hacker
8781 Posts |
Posted - 2010-03-22 : 11:13:42
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Import your data from file into a staging table.Do your needed inserts into your task_type table via grouping and where not exists()...insert from staging table into destination table joining task_type on task_type string and use the id from task_type.
No, you're never too old to Yak'n'Roll if you're too young to die. |
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oufan222
Starting Member
6 Posts |
Posted - 2010-03-22 : 15:14:35
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| What about updates? Is it the same process? |
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webfred
Master Smack Fu Yak Hacker
8781 Posts |
Posted - 2010-03-22 : 15:17:59
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Yes but only to the destination table.First make an update where exists() then the insert where not exists().I can't believe the task_type should be updated via import...
No, you're never too old to Yak'n'Roll if you're too young to die. |
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oufan222
Starting Member
6 Posts |
Posted - 2010-03-22 : 16:12:28
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The table will not be updated during import, that question was just me thinking ahead.Thanks for the prompt response. quote:
Import your data from file into a staging table.Do your needed inserts into your task_type table via grouping and where not exists()...insert from staging table into destination table joining task_type on task_type string and use the id from task_type.
I'm reading the text file into a datatable in C#. By "staging table" are you referring to a datatable object? How do I perform the JOIN between two datatables? Is it possible? |
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Importing Data