Suppose you have a data textfile named textfilename.txt that contains 5 comma separated columns of data on each line and each columns enclosed by ‘”‘ (double quotes). You want to import this textfile into your MySQL table named mytablename, which has 5 columns that are named field1, field2, field3, field4 and field5.

To import the datafile, type the following SQL at the mysql prompt:

LOAD DATA LOCAL INFILE ‘textfilename.txt’
INTO TABLE mytablename
FIELDS TERMINATED BY ‘,’ ENCLOSED BY ‘”‘
LINES TERMINATED BY ‘\r\n’
(field1, filed2, field3, field4, field5);

The above SQL statement tells the MySQL server to find textfilename.txt on the LOCAL filesystem, to read each line of the file as a separate row, to treat any comma character as a column delimiter, each columns enclosed by double quotes and to put it into your MySQL mytablename as columns field1, field2, field3, field4, and field5 respectively.