Import/Restore SQL Files From the Command Line

Written by Cory S.N. LaViska on July 24th, 2008

Using the command line to import large SQL files into a MySQL database.

I don’t use this very often, but when I do I always spend a decent amount of time trying to figure it out online. Here are the steps to import a large SQL file from the command line:

  1. Upload the SQL file to the server that your MySQL database is on
  2. Execute the following command from the terminal (command line):
    mysql -u [username] -p [database name] < /path/to/file/data.sql
  3. Enter the appropriate MySQL password at the prompt

Since anything over 2MB won’t paste gracefully into a textarea, this works really well with large SQL files generated by phpMyAdmin. Remember to truncate data and/or drop tables where necessary before importing, otherwise the restore may not work as intended. (For example, CREATE TABLE will not work if the table already exists and INSERT statements will fail if a primary key already exists.)

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