IMPORT INTO

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The IMPORT INTO statement imports CSV, Avro, or delimited data into an existing table, by appending new rows into the table.

Considerations

• IMPORT INTO works for existing tables. To import data into new tables, read the following Import into a new table from a CSV file example.
• IMPORT INTO takes the table offline before importing the data. The table will be online again once the job has completed successfully.
• IMPORT INTO cannot be used during a rolling upgrade.
• IMPORT INTO is a blocking statement. To run an IMPORT INTO job asynchronously, use the DETACHED option.
• IMPORT INTO invalidates all foreign keys on the target table. To validate the foreign key(s), use the VALIDATE CONSTRAINT statement.
• IMPORT INTO is an insert-only statement; it cannot be used to update existing rows—see UPDATE. Imported rows cannot conflict with primary keys in the existing table, or any other UNIQUE constraint on the table.
• IMPORT INTO does not offer SELECT or WHERE clauses to specify subsets of rows. To do this, use INSERT.
• IMPORT INTO will cause any changefeeds running on the targeted table to fail.
• See the IMPORT page for guidance on importing PostgreSQL and MySQL dump files.

IMPORT INTO now supports importing into REGIONAL BY ROW tables.

Required privileges

Table privileges

The user must have the INSERT and DROP privileges on the specified table. (DROP is required because the table is taken offline during the IMPORT INTO.)

Source privileges

The source file URL does not require the ADMIN role in the following scenarios:

• S3 and GS using SPECIFIED (and not IMPLICIT) credentials. Azure is always SPECIFIED by default.
• Userfile

The source file URL does require the ADMIN role in the following scenarios:

• S3 or GS using IMPLICIT credentials
• Use of a custom endpoint on S3
• Nodelocal, HTTP, or HTTPS

Learn more about cloud storage for bulk operations.

Synopsis

Parameters

Delimited data files

The DELIMITED DATA format can be used to import delimited data from any text file type, while ignoring characters that need to be escaped, like the following:

• The file's delimiter (\t by default)
• Double quotes (")
• Newline (\n)
• Carriage return (\r)

For examples showing how to use the DELIMITED DATA format, see the Examples section below.

Import options

You can control the IMPORT process's behavior using any of the following key-value pairs as a <option> [= <value>].

For examples showing how to use these options, see the Examples section.

For instructions and working examples showing how to migrate data from other databases and formats, see the Migration Overview.

Requirements

Before you begin

Before using IMPORT INTO, you should have:

• An existing table to import into (use CREATE TABLE).

  IMPORT INTO supports computed columns and the DEFAULT expressions listed below.

• The CSV or Avro data you want to import, preferably hosted on cloud storage. This location must be equally accessible to all nodes using the same import file location. This is necessary because the IMPORT INTO statement is issued once by the client, but is executed concurrently across all nodes of the cluster. For more information, see the Import file location section below.

Supported DEFAULT expressions

IMPORT INTO supports computed columns and the following DEFAULT expressions:

• DEFAULT expressions with user-defined types.

• Constant DEFAULT expressions, which are expressions that return the same value in different statements. Examples include:

  • Literals (booleans, strings, integers, decimals, dates)
  • Functions where each argument is a constant expression and the functions themselves depend solely on their arguments (e.g., arithmetic operations, boolean logical operations, string operations).

• Current TIMESTAMP functions that record the transaction timestamp, which include:

  • current_date()
  • current_timestamp()
  • localtimestamp()
  • now()
  • statement_timestamp()
  • timeofday()
  • transaction_timestamp()

• random()

• gen_random_uuid()

• unique_rowid()

• nextval()

Available storage

Each node in the cluster is assigned an equal part of the imported data, and so must have enough temp space to store it. In addition, data is persisted as a normal table, and so there must also be enough space to hold the final, replicated data. The node's first-listed/default store directory must have enough available storage to hold its portion of the data.

On cockroach start, if you set --max-disk-temp-storage, it must also be greater than the portion of the data a node will store in temp space.

Import file location

CockroachDB uses the URL provided to construct a secure API call to the service you specify. The URL structure depends on the type of file storage you are using. For more information, see the following:

• Use Cloud Storage for Bulk Operations
• Use a Local File Server for Bulk Operations

Performance

• All nodes are used during the import job, which means all nodes' CPU and RAM will be partially consumed by the IMPORT task in addition to serving normal traffic.
• To improve performance, import at least as many files as you have nodes (i.e., there is at least one file for each node to import) to increase parallelism.
• To further improve performance, order the data in the imported files by primary key and ensure the primary keys do not overlap between files.
• New in v22.1: An import job will pause if a node in the cluster runs out of disk space. See Viewing and controlling import jobs for information on resuming and showing the progress of import jobs.
• New in v22.1: An import job will pause instead of entering a failed state if it continues to encounter transient errors once it has retried a maximum number of times. Once the import has paused, you can either resume or cancel it.

For more detail on optimizing import performance, see Import Performance Best Practices.

Viewing and controlling import jobs

After CockroachDB successfully initiates an import into an existing table, it registers the import as a job, which you can view with SHOW JOBS.

After the import has been initiated, you can control it with PAUSE JOB, RESUME JOB, and CANCEL JOB.

If initiated correctly, the statement returns when the import is finished or if it encounters an error. In some cases, the import can continue after an error has been returned (the error message will tell you that the import has resumed in background).

Examples

We recommend reading the Considerations section for important details when working with IMPORT INTO.

The following examples make use of:

• Amazon S3 connection strings. For guidance on connecting to other storage options or using other authentication parameters instead, read Use Cloud Storage for Bulk Operations.
• The default AUTH=specified parameter. For guidance on using AUTH=implicit authentication with Amazon S3 buckets instead, read Use Cloud Storage for Bulk Operations — Authentication.

Import into a new table from a CSV file

To import into a new table, use CREATE TABLE followed by IMPORT INTO.

First, create the new table with the necessary columns and data types:

CREATE TABLE users (
        id UUID PRIMARY KEY,
        city STRING,
        name STRING,
        address STRING,
        credit_card STRING
      );

Next, use IMPORT INTO to import the data into the new table:

IMPORT INTO users (id, city, name, address, credit_card)
     CSV DATA (
       's3://{BUCKET NAME}/{customers.csv}?AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID={KEY ID}&AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY={SECRET ACCESS KEY}'
     );

Import into an existing table from a CSV file

> IMPORT INTO customers (id, name)
    CSV DATA (
      's3://{BUCKET NAME}/{customers.csv}?AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID={KEY ID}&AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY={SECRET ACCESS KEY}'
    );

Import into an existing table from multiple CSV files

> IMPORT INTO customers (id, name)
    CSV DATA (
      's3://{BUCKET NAME}/{customers.csv}?AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID={KEY ID}&AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY={SECRET ACCESS KEY}',
      's3://{BUCKET NAME}/{customers2.csv}?AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID={KEY ID}&AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY={SECRET ACCESS KEY}',
      's3://{BUCKET NAME}/{customers3.csv}?AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID={KEY ID}&AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY={SECRET ACCESS KEY}',
      's3://{BUCKET NAME}/{customers4.csv}?AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID={KEY ID}&AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY={SECRET ACCESS KEY}',
    );

Import into an existing table using a wildcard

You can specify file patterns to match instead of explicitly listing every file. Paths are matched using the * wildcard character to include matching files directly under the specified path. Use a wildcard to include:

• All files in a given directory (e.g.,s3://bucket-name/path/to/data/*).
• All files in a given directory that end with a given string (e.g., s3://bucket-name/files/*.csv).
• All files in a given directory that start with a given string (e.g., s3://bucket-name/files/data*).
• All files in a given directory that start and end with a given string (e.g., s3://bucket-name/files/data*.csv).

These only match files directly under the specified path and do not descend into additional directories recursively.

IMPORT INTO users (id, city, name, address, credit_card)
  CSV DATA (
    's3://{BUCKET NAME}/*.csv?AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID={KEY ID}&AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY={SECRET ACCESS KEY}'
  );

Import into an existing table from an Avro file

Avro OCF data, JSON records, or binary records can be imported. The following are examples of importing Avro OCF data.

To specify the table schema in-line:

> IMPORT INTO customers
    AVRO DATA (
      's3://{BUCKET NAME}/{customers.avro}?AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID={KEY ID}&AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY={SECRET ACCESS KEY}'
    );

For more information about importing data from Avro, including examples, see Migrate from Avro.

Import into an existing table from a delimited data file

> IMPORT INTO customers
    DELIMITED DATA (
      's3://{BUCKET NAME}/{customers.csv}?AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID={KEY ID}&AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY={SECRET ACCESS KEY}'
    )
    WITH
      fields_terminated_by='|',
      fields_enclosed_by='"',
      fields_escaped_by='\';

Known limitations

• You cannot import into a table with partial indexes.
• While importing into an existing table, the table is taken offline.
• After importing into an existing table, constraints will be un-validated and need to be re-validated.
• Imported rows must not conflict with existing rows in the table or any unique secondary indexes.
• IMPORT INTO works for only a single existing table.

• IMPORT INTO can sometimes fail with a "context canceled" error, or can restart itself many times without ever finishing. If this is happening, it is likely due to a high amount of disk contention. This can be mitigated by setting the kv.bulk_io_write.max_rate cluster setting to a value below your max disk write speed. For example, to set it to 10MB/s, execute:

  > SET CLUSTER SETTING kv.bulk_io_write.max_rate = '10MB';
  

See also

• IMPORT
• Migration Overview
• Use Cloud Storage for Bulk Operations
• Import Performance Best Practices

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