How to parse data from a CLOB in SQL Server?

Question

I would like to use OPENROWSET with the BULK command to load data into SQL Server as a CLOB, and as a second step to parse the CLOB and load read the data as a table.

E.g.:

SELECT BulkColumn 
FROM OPENROWSET (BULK 'c:\somedir\somefile.txt', SINGLE_CLOB) TheFile

yields:

BulkColumn
Col1,Col2,Col3,1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2,3

I want to select this as:

Col1   Col2   Col3
1      2      3
1      2      3
1      2      3

Answer 1

Create a format file and use OPENROWSET or BULK INSERT to import data from text file. Example format.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" ?> 
<BCPFORMAT xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2004/bulkload/format" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
 <RECORD>
  <FIELD ID="1" xsi:type="CharTerm" TERMINATOR="," MAX_LENGTH="1" /> 
  <FIELD ID="2" xsi:type="CharTerm" TERMINATOR="," MAX_LENGTH="1" /> 
  <FIELD ID="3" xsi:type="CharTerm" TERMINATOR="," MAX_LENGTH="1" /> 
 </RECORD>
 <ROW>
  <COLUMN SOURCE="1" NAME="Col1" xsi:type="SQLNVARCHAR" /> 
  <COLUMN SOURCE="2" NAME="Col2" xsi:type="SQLNVARCHAR" /> 
  <COLUMN SOURCE="3" NAME="Col3" xsi:type="SQLNVARCHAR" />  
 </ROW>
</BCPFORMAT>

This is the key line: <FIELD ID="3" xsi:type="CharTerm" TERMINATOR="," MAX_LENGTH="1" /> where the terminator char is "," and not "\r\n", if the data is in a single line.

Example OPENROWSET:

INSERT INTO [your_table]
SELECT      [text_file].[Col1],
            [text_file].[Col2],
            [text_file].[Col3]
FROM OPENROWSET(
BULK N'c:\somedir\somefile.txt',
FORMATFILE = N'c:\somedir\format.xml',
FIRSTROW = 1) AS [text_file]

Example BULK INSERT:

BULK INSERT [your_table]
FROM        N'c:\somedir\somefile.txt'
WITH        (FORMATFILE = N'c:\somedir\format.xml')

Answer 2

Don't import it as OPENROWSET..BULK

You can use BULK INSERT to import it as columns or OPENROWSET by itself