How do I load a text file to Database in PHP? - php

Question

Originally $filepath is like this
$filepath=$_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']."/".SCRIPTFOLDER."somefile.txt";
$sqlquerynew = "LOAD DATA INFILE '".$filepath."' INTO TABLE mytable FIELDS TERMINATED BY ','";
mysql_query($sqlquery);
That works. It sits on the server.
But what if I want to put somefile.txt outside the same server? If I put that in dropbox, and reuse the code like the following, it doesn't do anything.
$sqlquerycreate = / ** Here insert DB scheme code **/
$filepath="http://example.com/somefile.txt";
$sqlquerynew = "LOAD DATA INFILE '".$filepath."' INTO TABLE mytable FIELDS TERMINATED BY ','";
mysql_query($sqlquery);
What should I do instead? The text file contains the data for the table.
Thanks.
$data_file = file_get_contents('http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14655573/john/nyccrash.txt');
file_put_contents('C:\xampp\htdocs\import\nyccrash.txt', $data_file);
$filepath = "C:\xampp\htdocs\import\nyccrash.txt";
echo $filepath;
$sqlquery = "LOAD DATA INFILE '".$filepath."' INTO TABLE nyccrash FIELDS TERMINATED BY ',' (crash_year, accident_type, collision_type,weather_condition,light_condition,x_coordinate,y_coordinate)";
Okay. I see this file now. But it didn't get import to the DB. This is XAMPP. But I will, eventually, move to Ubuntu. What's the problem with this code?

Answer 1

Try this:
$file = file_get_contents("http://example.com/somefile.txt");
$filepath=$_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']."/".SCRIPTFOLDER."somefile.txt";
file_put_contents($filepath, $file);
$sqlquerycreate = / ** Here insert DB scheme code **/
$sqlquerynew = "LOAD DATA INFILE '".$filepath."' INTO TABLE mytable FIELDS TERMINATED BY ','";
mysql_query($sqlquery);
Hope it helps..

Answer 2

The LOAD DATA INFILE reads a file from the client or from the server, not from the internet.
You could use copy() to first download the file to a temporary directory, and then point LOAD DATA INFILE to that directory.

Answer 3

Create first a temporary file on your server:
$tmpFile = tempnam('my-tmp-dir', 'TMP');
$ok = copy('http://example.com/somefile.txt', $tmpFile);
if ( !$ok ) exit('ERROR!');
// Then use $filepath in your SQL query
$sqlquerynew = "LOAD DATA INFILE '".$filepath."' INTO TABLE mytable FIELDS TERMINATED BY ','";
mysql_query($sqlquery);
unlink($tmpFile);

Answer 4

You can first import data in local file with
//read data from remote file
$data_file = file_get_contents($http_url);
// put data in a local file
$temp_file = tempnam(sys_get_temp_dir(),'TMP');
file_put_contents($temp_file,$data_file);
//now use $temp_file into the SQL query
....
//Delete temp file
unlink($temp_file);
Please note that PHP has functions to get the system's TEMP path, and to generate a temporary filename.
In the /tmp you should not have permissions issues.