CSV (or sheet in XLS) to SQL create (and insert) statements with .Net?

Question

Does anyone have a technique for generating SQL table create (and data insert) commands pragmatically from a CSV (or sheet in a .xls) file?

I've got a third party database system which I'd like to populate with data from a csv file (or sheet in a xls file) but the importer supplied can't create the table structure automatically as it does the import. My csv file has lots of tables with lots of columns so I'd like to automate the table creation process as well as the data importing if possible but I'm unsure about how to go about generating the create statement...

Answer 1

In SQL server it is as easy as

SELECT * INTO NewTablenNmeHere
FROM OPENROWSET( 'Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0', 
'Excel 8.0;Database=C:\testing.xls','SELECT * FROM [Sheet1$]') 

Answer 2

I recommend having a look at csvkit. Its csvsql function can generate table insert statements, or even execute them for you, from most tabular data sources.

Answer 3

BULK 
INSERT CSVTest
        FROM 'c:\csvtest.txt'
            WITH
    (
                FIELDTERMINATOR = ',',
                ROWTERMINATOR = '\n'
    )

Answer 4

Unfortunately I'm using an SQLEngine for embedded systems so it does not support BULK INSERT or OLEDB datasources, which is why I was thinking of taking the sql statement generation approach.