Q – Run SQL Directly on CSV or TSV Files

[gorgas]

https://github.com/harelba/q

[fdik]

On Windoze, ADO lets you use SQL directly on any data source for many years now, including CSV, TSV, Exchange Microsoft, and many more.

Here's a sample how this can be done: http://fdik.org/ado.zip

Such database middleware is missing on many other platforms. Could be an option to think about it.

[CHY872 → fdik]

Postgres can do it. https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Foreign_data_wrappers

[ClashTheBunny]

If you want to just drop CSV files into MySQL, go for it with using the CSV file backing: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/csv-storage-engine.ht...

As the comments say, create the table with a CSV storage backing and then delete the file and symlink any file to the same location. You are now querying your quicken export or your excel file.

[codeulike]

On windows, Logparser 2.2 is a fast implementation of a similar idea.

Does Q handle typical aggravated CSV symptoms such as commas in speechmark delimited strings, speechmarks in speechmark delimited strings, strings that contain carriage returns, etc?

[easytiger]

is this deliberately named to confuse people with the kdb q language?

http://code.kx.com/wiki/JB:QforMortals2/contents

[papercrane → easytiger]

I doubt it was deliberate. Q isn't exactly a well-known language outside of the financial sector.

[sucramb → easytiger]

From the q file on github:

# Name : q (With respect to The Q Continuum)

[urlwolf]

csvtools have had a tool to do this for a while. Not directly though, it goes through sqlite.