Bulk Copy Program

Bulk Copy Program[1] (BCP) is a command-line tool used to import or export data against a Microsoft SQL Server or Sybase database. The tool is often more efficient than more recent GUI-based applications, such as DTS, to import and extract data.

Common uses

Some common uses of BCP are:

  • Stage a raw text file in a table for further data scrubbing.
  • Create a delimited or fixed-width file for exchange with another party.
  • Backup data from a database vendor specific format, to a common text format.

Other platforms
  • Oracle uses SQL*LOADER,[2] implemented on the command-line as sqlldr[3]
  • DB2 uses the LOAD/EXPORT commands
  • MySQL uses LOAD DATA INFILE[4]
  • PostgreSQL uses the COPY command[5]

References
  1. "Microsoft SQL Server bcp Utility". Microsoft. April 2010.
  2. http://docs.oracle.com/cd/B19306_01/server.102/b14220/utility.htm#sthref1799
  3. Gennick, Jonathan; Mishra, Sanjay (2001). Oracle SQL*Loader: The Definitive Guide. Definitive Guide Series. O'Reilly Media, Inc. p. 14. ISBN 9781565929487. Retrieved 2015-08-13. On Unix systems, the command used to invoke SQL*Loader is sqlldr. On Windows systems running Oracle8i, release 8.1 or higher, the command is also sqlldr. Prior to release 8.1, the SQL*Loader command on Windows included the first two digits of the Oracle release number [...] sqlldr80 (Oracle8, release 8.0), sqlldr73 (Oracle7, release 7.3), and so forth.
  4. "MySQL 5.1 LOAD DATA INFILE Documentation". Retrieved 2010-05-31.
  5. "PostgreSQL 8.1.21 Documentation". Retrieved 2010-05-31.


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