sybperl-l Archive

From: "Avis, Ed" <avised at kbcfp dot com>
Subject: RE: Bulk insert/load API access from DBI
Date: Jul 6 2004 3:59PM

Michael Peppler wrote:

>I've been asked to investigate the feasibility of adding access to
>Sybase's bulk-load API in DBD::Sybase. This is an API that 
>allows you to load table rows in a minimally logged manner, and is of
>course much faster than normal INSERT statements.

As you know, there's already a Sybase::BCP module but it's slower than
the command-line 'bcp' tool.  In principle, DBD::Sybase could provide
access to that using the same interface as ordinary bulk loads.

>Maybe something like:
>
>$sth = $dbh->prepare("BULK INSERT  -- attributes to be
>defined");
>while(<>) {
>   @row = split('\|');   # or whatever...
>   $sth->execute(@row);
>}
>$sth->commit;

IMHO - making up bogus SQL statements and a new syntax for them is a
can of worms.  It would be much simpler to say

    $dbh->prepare_bulk(tablename, stuff...)

with some meaningful convention for the arguments (which doesn't
involve stuffing them into a single string and parsing it again).  You
can still use execute(), commit() and the other parts of the usual
interface.

-- 
Ed Avis