A Quick Way to Import Spreadsheet Into a Relational Database

I just made a youtube video to show readers how to do this. We often need to import data from Excel spreadsheet, such as the one shown below, into a database.

A quick way that works for any databases is to simply generate SQL insert statements for those rows using formula similar to: Formula: =CONCATENATE("insert into tbl_dataset values(",A2,",","'",B2,"');") as shown in column C of the picture below.

Formula: =CONCATENATE("insert into tbl_dataset values(",A2,",","'",B2,"');")

We create a destination table. Then we copy those "insert into " statements from Excel spreadsheet and paste them into SQL client tool such as SQL Developer or SQLPLUS to run them. Do not forget to commit the inserts.This approach has advantages: 1. It works for any relational databases as the insert statements are standard SQL (if not can adjust the spreadsheet formula slightly). 2. It does not require any data import tools. All we need are Excel spreadsheet and a SQL client to run the create table and insert statements.

SQL> create table tbl_dataset (col1 number, col2 varchar2(8));
Table created.

Run the following insert statements. If there are many lines, we can put them in a script file and run the script file.

insert into tbl_dataset values(1,'A');
insert into tbl_dataset values(2,'B');
insert into tbl_dataset values(3,'C');
insert into tbl_dataset values(4,'D');
insert into tbl_dataset values(5,'E');
insert into tbl_dataset values(6,'F');
insert into tbl_dataset values(7,'G');
insert into tbl_dataset values(8,'H');
insert into tbl_dataset values(9,'I');

SQL> insert into tbl_dataset values(1,'A');
1 row created.
SQL> insert into tbl_dataset values(2,'B');
1 row created.
SQL> insert into tbl_dataset values(3,'C');
1 row created.
SQL> insert into tbl_dataset values(4,'D');
1 row created.
SQL> insert into tbl_dataset values(5,'E');
1 row created.
SQL> insert into tbl_dataset values(6,'F');
1 row created.
SQL> insert into tbl_dataset values(7,'G');
1 row created.
SQL> insert into tbl_dataset values(8,'H');
1 row created.
SQL> insert into tbl_dataset values(9,'I');
1 row created.

Do not forget to commit the changes.

SQL> commit;
Commit complete.

Data are imported into the database.

SQL> select * from tbl_dataset;

COL1	COL2
1	A
2	B
3	C
4	D
5	E
6	F
7	G
8	H
9	I

9 rows selected.