Chapter 7. Importing Structure and Data

In this chapter, we will learn how to import data that we may have exported for backup or transfer purposes. Exported data may also come from authors of other applications, and could contain the whole foundation structure of these applications, along with some sample data.

The current phpMyAdmin version (3.4) can import the following:

• Files containing MySQL statements (usually having a .sql suffix, but not necessarily so)

• CSV files (comma-separated values, although the separator is not necessarily a comma); these files can be imported by phpMyAdmin itself or via the MySQL LOAD DATA INFILE statement which enables the MySQL server to handle the data directly rather than having phpMyAdmin parse it first

• Open Document Spreadsheet files

• XML files (generated by phpMyAdmin)

The binary column upload covered in Chapter 5 can be said to belong to the import family.

Note

Importing and uploading are synonyms in this context.

In general, an exported file can be imported...