A rookie question - all I want to do is open a text file x.txt and read each line - no bcp or bulk insert required.

Is there a simple way to do this ?

Thanks in advance to all who reply !

Not with ANSI-92 syntax. You'd have to use specific DBMS extensions for it. Pick the engine (Oracle, SQL Server, UDB, etc.) and post accordingly.

I am using SQL Server 7.0.

I know how to do this in Oracle using the DBMS functions. Are there similar functions in MSSQL ?

Thanks for your reply !

I use sp_OAxxx with FileSystemObject.

In my opinion, this is one of the fundamental design flaws in Oracle. They are attempting to make PL/SQL a programming language instead of a data[base] manipulation language.

If you stop and think about it, reading text the way that you want to do it is a client side activity. Using BCP or BULK INSERT are server side activities. There is a fundamental difference between them (which machine the code actually runs on)!

Any solution you find for MS-SQL will involve server side activity. Sybase (now Microsoft) never intended for Transact-SQL scripts to run on the client, they always assumed that those Transact-SQL scripts would run on the server. That is exactly why user interface code, file access, etc are absent from Transact-SQL... The absence is by design.

Using Microsoft Transact-SQL, you'll need to either adopt a server centric point of view, or write your client side code using the client language. There is a clear distinction between the client and server in Transact-SQL.

-PatP

BrutusBuckeye, Pat has a very strong opinion about all this

I'd still use sp_OAxxx if you insist on reading a text file one line at a time, but why bother? Use BULK INSERT and then deal with it in a recordset-based fashion!

UNCLE !!!!

Thanks for all your help. I am indeed going the Bulk Insert route.

Thanks again from the school of hard knocks..

Dang! Did I let that secret out again ?!?!

-PatP