12.4 Parallel Table Import Utility

About the Utility

MySQL Shell's parallel table import utility supports the output from MySQL Shell's table export utility, which can compress the data file it produces as output, and can export it to a local folder or an Object Storage bucket. The default dialect for the parallel table import utility is the default for the output file produced by the table export utility. The parallel table import utility can also be used to upload files from other sources.

The data file or files to be imported can be in any of the following locations:

A location that is accessible to the client host as a local disk.
A remote location that is accessible to the client host through HTTP or HTTPS, specified with a URL. Pattern matching is not supported for files accessed in this way.
An Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage bucket.

The data is imported to a single relational table in the MySQL server to which the active MySQL session is connected.

When you run the parallel table import utility, you specify the mapping between the fields in the data file or files, and the columns in the MySQL table. You can set field- and line-handling options as for the LOAD DATA statement to handle data files in arbitrary formats. For multiple files, all the files must be in the same format. The default dialect for the utility maps to a file created using a SELECT...INTO OUTFILE statement with the default settings for that statement. The utility also has preset dialects that map to the standard data formats for CSV files (created on DOS or UNIX systems), TSV files, and JSON, and you can customize these using the field- and line-handling options as necessary. Note that JSON data must be in document-per-line format.

A number of functions have been added to the parallel table import utility since it was introduced, so use the most recent version of MySQL Shell to get the utility's full functionality.

Input preprocessing: The parallel table import utility can capture columns from the data file or files for input preprocessing, in the same way as with a LOAD DATA statement. The selected data can be discarded, or you can transform the data and assign it to a column in the target table.
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage import: The data must be imported from a location that is accessible to the client host as a local disk or the data can be imported from an Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage bucket, specified by the osBucketName option.
Multiple data file import: The parallel table import utility can import a single input data file to a single relational table and is also capable of importing a specified list of files, and it supports wildcard pattern matching to include all relevant files from a location. Multiple files uploaded by a single run of the utility are placed into a single relational table, so for example, data that has been exported from multiple hosts could be merged into a single table to be used for analytics.
Compressed file handling: The parallel table import utility can accept an uncompressed input data file. The utility analyzes the data file, distributes it into chunks, and uploads the chunks to the relational table in the target MySQL server, dividing the chunks up between the parallel connections. The utility can also accept data files compressed in the gzip (.gz) and zstd (.zst) formats, detecting the format automatically based on the file extension. The utility uploads a compressed file from storage in the compressed format, saving bandwidth for that part of the transfer. Compressed files cannot be distributed into chunks, so instead the utility uses its parallel connections to decompress and upload multiple files simultaneously to the target server. If there is only one input data file, the upload of a compressed file can only use a single connection.

MySQL Shell's dump loading utility util.loadDump() is designed to import the combination of chunked output files and metadata produced by MySQL Shell's instance dump utility util.dumpInstance(), schema dump utility util.dumpSchemas(), and table dump utility util.dumpTables(). The parallel table import utility can be used in combination with the dump loading utility if you want to modify any of the data in the chunked output files before uploading it to the target server. To do this, first use the dump loading utility to load only the DDL for the selected table, to create the table on the target server. Then use the parallel table import utility to capture and transform data from the output files for the table, and import it to the target table. Repeat that process as necessary for any other tables where you want to modify the data. Finally, use the dump loading utility to load the DDL and data for any remaining tables that you do not want to modify, excluding the tables that you did modify. For a description of the procedure, see Modifying Dumped Data.

Requirements and Restrictions

Note

The parallel table import utility requires a classic connection to the target server. It does not currently support X Protocol connections.

The parallel table import utility uses LOAD DATA LOCAL INFILE statements to upload data, so the local_infile system variable must be set to ON on the target server. You can do this by issuing the following statement in SQL mode before running the parallel table import utility:

SET GLOBAL local_infile = 1;

To avoid a known potential security issue with LOAD DATA LOCAL, when the MySQL server replies to the parallel table import utility's LOAD DATA requests with file transfer requests, the utility only sends the predetermined data chunks, and ignores any specific requests attempted by the server. For more information, see Security Considerations for LOAD DATA LOCAL.

Running the Utility

The parallel table import utility requires an existing classic MySQL protocol connection to the target MySQL server. Each thread opens its own session to send chunks of the data to the MySQL server, or in the case of compressed files, to send multiple files in parallel. You can adjust the number of threads, number of bytes sent in each chunk, and maximum rate of data transfer per thread, to balance the load on the network and the speed of data transfer. The utility cannot operate over X Protocol connections, which do not support LOAD DATA statements.

In the MySQL Shell API, the parallel table import utility is a function of the util global object, and has the following signature:

importTable ({file_name | file_list}, options)

options is a dictionary of import options that can be omitted if it is empty. The options are listed in the final section of this topic.

file_name is a string specifying the name and path for a single file containing the data to be imported. Alternatively, file_list is an array of file paths specifying multiple data files. On Windows, backslashes must be escaped in file paths, or you can use forward slashes instead.

For files that are accessible to the client host on a local disk, you can prefix the directory path with the file:// schema, or allow it to default to that. For files accessed in this way, file paths can contain the wildcards * (multiple characters) and ? (single character) for pattern matching. Note that if these wildcard characters are present in file paths, the utility treats them as wildcards and might therefore attempt an incorrect strategy for file transfer.
For files that are accessible to the client host through HTTP or HTTPS, provide a URL or a list of URLs, prefixed with the http:// or https:// schema as appropriate, in the format http[s]://host.domain[:port]/path. For files accessed in this way, pattern matching is not available. The HTTP server must support the Range request header, and must return the Content-Range response header to the client.
For files in an Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage bucket, specify a path to the file in the bucket, and use the osBucketName option to specify the bucket name.

The function returns void, or an exception in case of an error. If the import is stopped partway by the user with Ctrl+C or by an error, the utility stops sending data. When the server finishes processing the data it received, messages are returned showing the chunk that was being imported by each thread at the time, the percentage complete, and the number of records that were updated in the target table.

The following examples, the first in MySQL Shell's JavaScript mode and the second in MySQL Shell's Python mode, import the data in a single CSV file /tmp/productrange.csv to the products table in the mydb database, skipping a header row in the file:

mysql-js> util.importTable("/tmp/productrange.csv", {schema: "mydb", table: "products", dialect: "csv-unix", skipRows: 1, showProgress: true})

mysql-py> util.import_table("/tmp/productrange.csv", {"schema": "mydb", "table": "products", "dialect": "csv-unix", "skipRows": 1, "showProgress": True})

The following example in MySQL Shell's Python mode only specifies the dialect for the CSV file. mydb is the active schema for the MySQL Shell session. The utility therefore imports the data in the file /tmp/productrange.csv to the productrange table in the mydb database:

mysql-py> \use mydb
mysql-py> util.import_table("/tmp/productrange.csv", {"dialect": "csv-unix"})

The following example in MySQL Shell's Python mode imports the data from multiple files, including a mix of individually named files, ranges of files specified using wildcard pattern matching, and compressed files:

mysql-py> util.import_table(
    [
        "data_a.csv",
        "data_b*",
        "data_c*",
        "data_d.tsv.zst",
        "data_e.tsv.zst",
        "data_f.tsv.gz",
        "/backup/replica3/2021_01_12/data_g.tsv",
        "/backup/replica3/2021_01_13/*.tsv",
    ],
    {"schema": "mydb", "table": "productrange"}
)

The parallel table import utility can also be invoked from the command line using the mysqlsh command interface. With this interface, you invoke the utility as in the following examples:

mysqlsh mysql://root:@127.0.0.1:3366 --ssl-mode=DISABLED -- util import-table /r/mytable.dump --schema=mydb --table=regions --bytes-per-chunk=10M --linesTerminatedBy=$'\r\n'

When you import multiple data files, ranges of files specified using wildcard pattern matching are expanded by MySQL Shell's glob pattern matching logic if they are quoted, as in the following example. Otherwise they are expanded by the pattern matching logic for the user shell where you entered the mysqlsh command.

mysqlsh mysql://root:@127.0.0.1:3366 -- util import-table data_a.csv "data_b*" data_d.tsv.zst --schema=mydb --table=productrange --osBucketName=mybucket

Note that as shown in the above example, line feed characters must be passed using ANSI-C quoting in shells that support this function (such as bash, ksh, mksh, and zsh). For information on the mysqlsh command-line integration, see Section 5.8, “API Command Line Integration”.

Options for Importing Tables

The following import options are available for the parallel table import utility to specify how the data is imported:

schema: "db_name"

The name of the target database on the connected MySQL server. If you omit this option, the utility attempts to identify and use the schema name in use for the current MySQL Shell session, as specified in a connection URI string, \use command, or MySQL Shell option. If the schema name is not specified and cannot be identified from the session, an error is returned.

table: "table_name"

The name of the target relational table. If you omit this option, the utility assumes the table name is the name of the data file without the extension. The target table must exist in the target database.

columns: array of column names

An array of strings containing column names from the import file or files, given in the order that they map to columns in the target relational table. Use this option if the imported data does not contain all the columns of the target table, or if the order of the fields in the imported data differs from the order of the columns in the table. If you omit this option, input lines are expected to contain a matching field for each column in the target table.

You can use this option to capture columns from the import file or files for input preprocessing, in the same way as with a LOAD DATA statement. When you use an integer value in place of a column name in the array, that column in the import file or files is captured as a user variable @int, for example @1. The selected data can be discarded, or you can use the decodeColumns option to transform the data and assign it to a column in the target table.

In this example in MySQL Shell's JavaScript mode, the second and fourth columns from the import file are assigned to the user variables @1 and @2, and no decodeColumns option is present to assign them to any column in the target table, so they are discarded.

mysql-js> util.importTable('file.txt', {
            table: 't1',
            columns: ['column1', 1, 'column2', 2, 'column3']
          });

decodeColumns: dictionary

A dictionary of key-value pairs that assigns import file columns captured as user variables by the columns option to columns in the target table, and specifies preprocessing transformations for them in the same way as the SET clause of a LOAD DATA statement.

In this example in MySQL Shell's JavaScript mode, the first input column from the data file is used as the first column in the target table. The second input column, which has been assigned to the variable @1 by the columns option, is subjected to a division operation before being used as the value of the second column in the target table.

mysql-js> util.importTable('file.txt', {
            columns: ['column1', 1],
            decodeColumns: {'column2': '@1 / 100'}
          });

In this example in MySQL Shell's JavaScript mode, the input columns from the data file are both assigned to variables, then transformed in various ways and used to populate the columns of the target table:

mysql-js> util.importTable('file.txt', {
            table: 't1',
            columns: [1, 2],
            decodeColumns: {
              'a': '@1',
              'b': '@2',
              'sum': '@1 + @2',
              'multiple': '@1 * @2',
              'power': 'POW(@1, @2)'
            }
          });

skipRows: number

Skip this number of rows at the beginning of the import file, or in the case of multiple import files, at the beginning of every file included in the file list. You can use this option to omit an initial header line containing column names from the upload to the table. The default is that no rows are skipped.

replaceDuplicates: [true|false]

Whether input rows that have the same value for a primary key or unique index as an existing row should be replaced (true) or skipped (false). The default is false.

dialect: [default|csv|csv-unix|tsv|json]

Use a set of field- and line-handling options appropriate for the specified file format. You can use the selected dialect as a base for further customization, by also specifying one or more of the linesTerminatedBy, fieldsTerminatedBy, fieldsEnclosedBy, fieldsOptionallyEnclosed, and fieldsEscapedBy options to change the settings. The default dialect maps to a file created using a SELECT...INTO OUTFILE statement with the default settings for that statement. This is the default for the output file produced by MySQL Shell's table export utility. Other dialects are available to suit CSV files (created on either DOS or UNIX systems), TSV files, and JSON data. The settings applied for each dialect are as follows:

Table 12.2 Dialect settings for parallel table import utility

`dialect`	`linesTerminatedBy`	`fieldsTerminatedBy`	`fieldsEnclosedBy`	`fieldsOptionallyEnclosed`	`fieldsEscapedBy`
`default`	[LF]	[TAB]	[empty]	`false`	\
`csv`	[CR][LF]	,	''	`true`	\
`csv-unix`	[LF]	,	''	`false`	\
`tsv`	[CR][LF]	[TAB]	''	`true`	\
`json`	[LF]	[LF]	[empty]	`false`	[empty]

Note

The carriage return and line feed values for the dialects are operating system independent.
If you use the linesTerminatedBy, fieldsTerminatedBy, fieldsEnclosedBy, fieldsOptionallyEnclosed, and fieldsEscapedBy options, depending on the escaping conventions of your command interpreter, the backslash character (\) might need to be doubled if you use it in the option values.
Like the MySQL server with the LOAD DATA statement, MySQL Shell does not validate the field- and line-handling options that you specify. Inaccurate selections for these options can cause data to be imported into the wrong fields, partially, and/or incorrectly. Always verify your settings before starting the import, and verify the results afterwards.

linesTerminatedBy: "characters"

One or more characters (or an empty string) that terminates each of the lines in the input data file or files. The default is as for the specified dialect, or a linefeed character (\n) if the dialect option is omitted. This option is equivalent to the LINES TERMINATED BY option for the LOAD DATA statement. Note that the utility does not provide an equivalent for the LINES STARTING BY option for the LOAD DATA statement, which is set to the empty string.

fieldsTerminatedBy: "characters"

One or more characters (or an empty string) that terminates each of the fields in the input data file or files. The default is as for the specified dialect, or a tab character (\t) if the dialect option is omitted. This option is equivalent to the FIELDS TERMINATED BY option for the LOAD DATA statement.

fieldsEnclosedBy: "character"

A single character (or an empty string) that encloses each of the fields in the input data file or files. The default is as for the specified dialect, or the empty string if the dialect option is omitted. This option is equivalent to the FIELDS ENCLOSED BY option for the LOAD DATA statement.

fieldsOptionallyEnclosed: [ true | false ]

Whether the character given for fieldsEnclosedBy encloses all of the fields in the input data file or files (false), or encloses the fields only in some cases (true). The default is as for the specified dialect, or false if the dialect option is omitted. This option makes the fieldsEnclosedBy option equivalent to the FIELDS OPTIONALLY ENCLOSED BY option for the LOAD DATA statement.

fieldsEscapedBy: "character"

The character that begins escape sequences in the input data file or files. If this is not provided, escape sequence interpretation does not occur. The default is as for the specified dialect, or a backslash (\) if the dialect option is omitted. This option is equivalent to the FIELDS ESCAPED BY option for the LOAD DATA statement.

characterSet: "charset"

This option specifies a character set encoding with which the input data is interpreted during the import. Setting the option to binary means that no conversion is done during the import. When you omit this option, the import uses the character set specified by the character_set_database system variable to interpret the input data.

bytesPerChunk: "size"

For a list of multiple input data files, this option is not available. For a single input data file, this option specifies the number of bytes (plus any additional bytes required to reach the end of the row) that threads send for each LOAD DATA call to the target server. The utility distributes the data into chunks of this size for threads to pick up and send to the target server. The chunk size can be specified as a number of bytes, or using the suffixes k (kilobytes), M (megabytes), G (gigabytes). For example, bytesPerChunk="2k" makes threads send chunks of approximately 2 kilobytes. The minimum chunk size is 131072 bytes, and the default chunk size is 50M.

threads: number

The maximum number of parallel threads to use to send the data in the input file or files to the target server. If you do not specify a number of threads, the default maximum is 8. For a list of multiple input data files, the utility creates the specified or maximum number of threads. For a single input data file, the utility calculates an appropriate number of threads to create up to this maximum, using the following formula:

min{max{1, threads}, chunks}}

where threads is the maximum number of threads, and chunks is the number of chunks that the data will be split into, which is calculated by dividing the file size by the bytesPerChunk size then adding 1. The calculation ensures that if the maximum number of threads exceeds the number of chunks that will actually be sent, the utility does not create more threads than necessary.

Compressed files cannot be distributed into chunks, so instead the utility uses its parallel connections to upload multiple files at a time. If there is only one input data file, the upload of a compressed file can only use a single connection.

maxRate: "rate"

The maximum limit on data throughput in bytes per second per thread. Use this option if you need to avoid saturating the network or the I/O or CPU for the client host or target server. The maximum rate can be specified as a number of bytes, or using the suffixes k (kilobytes), M (megabytes), G (gigabytes). For example, maxRate="5M" limits each thread to 5MB of data per second, which for eight threads gives a transfer rate of 40MB/second. The default is 0, meaning that there is no limit.

showProgress: [ true | false ]

Display (true) or hide (false) progress information for the import. The default is true if stdout is a terminal (tty), and false otherwise.

sessionInitSql: list of strings

A list of SQL statements to run at the start of each client session used for loading data into the target MySQL instance. You can use this option to change session variables. For example, the following statements skip binary logging on the target MySQL instance for the sessions used by the utility during the course of the import, and increase the number of threads available for index creation:

sessionInitSQL: ["SET SESSION sql_log_bin=0;", "SET SESSION innodb_ddl_threads=8,"]

If an error occurs while running the SQL statements, the import stops and returns an error message.

Options for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure

MySQL Shell supports importing input data files stored in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage buckets.

osBucketName: "string"

The name of the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage bucket where the input data file is located. By default, the [DEFAULT] profile in the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure CLI configuration file located at ~/.oci/config is used to establish a connection to the bucket. You can substitute an alternative profile to be used for the connection with the ociConfigFile and ociProfile options. For instructions to set up a CLI configuration file, see SDK and CLI Configuration File.

osNamespace: "string"

The Oracle Cloud Infrastructure namespace where the Object Storage bucket named by osBucketName is located. The namespace for an Object Storage bucket is displayed in the Bucket Information tab of the bucket details page in the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure console, or can be obtained using the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure command line interface.

ociConfigFile: "string"

An Oracle Cloud Infrastructure CLI configuration file that contains the profile to use for the connection, instead of the one in the default location ~/.oci/config.

ociProfile: "string"

The profile name of the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure profile to use for the connection, instead of the [DEFAULT] profile in the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure CLI configuration file used for the connection.

ociAuth: "string"

The authentication method to use when connecting to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. This option requires osBucketName is configured with a valid value.

The following options are available:

api_key: OCI connections use the OCI configuration file. See Section 4.7.1, “Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage”.
If osBucketName is defined with a valid value, but ociAuth is not defined, api_key is the default value used.
instance_principal: OCI connections use instance principal authentication. See Instance Principal Authentication.
This option can not be used if ociConfigFile or ociProfile are defined.
resource_principal: OCI connections use resource principal authentication. See Resource Principal Authentication.
This option can not be used if ociConfigFile or ociProfile are defined.
security_token: OCI connections use a temporary, generated session token. See Session Token-Based Authentication.

Options for S3-Compatible Services

MySQL Shell supports importing input data files stored in S3-compatible buckets, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) S3.

Note

MySQL Shell supports AWS S3 configuration in command line options, environment variables, and configuration files. Command line options override environment variables, configuration files, and default options.

For information on configuration requirements, see Section 4.7, “Cloud Service Configuration”.

s3BucketName: "string"

The name of the S3 bucket where the dump files are located. By default, the default profile in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) CLI config and credentials files located at ~/.aws/ are used to establish a connection to the S3 bucket. You can substitute alternative configurations and credentials for the connection with the s3ConfigFile and s3CredentialsFile options. For instructions on installing and configuring the AWS CLI, see Getting started with the AWS CLI.

s3CredentialsFile: "string"

A credentials file that contains the user's credentials to use for the connection, instead of the one in the default location, ~/.aws/credentials. Typically, the credentials file contains the aws_access_key_id and aws_secret_access_key to use for the connection.

s3ConfigFile: "string"

An AWS CLI configuration file that contains the profile to use for the connection, instead of the one in the default location ~/.aws/config. Typically, the config file contains the region and output type to use for the connection.

s3Profile: "string"

The profile name of the s3 CLI profile to use for the connection, instead of the default profile in the AWS CLI configuration file used for the connection.

s3Region: "string"

The name of the region to use for the connection.

s3EndpointOverride: "string"

The URL of the endpoint to use instead of the default.

When connecting to the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure S3 compatibility API, the endpoint takes the following format: https://namespace.compat.objectstorage.region.oraclecloud.com. Replace namespace with the Object Storage namespace and region with your region identifier. For example, the region identifier for the US East (Ashburn) region is us-ashburn-1.

For a namespace named axaxnpcrorw5 in the US East (Ashburn) region:

https://axaxnpcrorw5.compat.objectstorage.us-ashburn-1.oraclecloud.com.

Options for Microsoft Azure Blob Storage

MySQL Shell supports importing from Microsoft Azure Blob Storage.

Note

MySQL Shell supports Microsoft Azure Blob Storage configuration in command line options, environment variables, and configuration files. Command line options override environment variables and configuration files.

For information on configuration requirements and the order of precedence of the configuration types, see Section 4.7, “Cloud Service Configuration”.

azureContainerName: "string"

Mandatory. The name of the Azure container from which the table is to be imported. The container must exist.

azureConfigFile: "string"

Optional. A configuration file that contains the storage connection parameters, instead of the one in the default location, such as ~/.azure/config. If this is not defined, the default configuration file is used.

azureContainerName must be defined, and not be empty.

azureStorageAccount: "string"

Optional. The name of the Azure storage account to use for the operation.

azureStorageSasToken: "string"

Optional. Azure Shared Access Signature (SAS) token to be used for the authentication of the operation, instead of a key.