Section 8.9. The CSV Storage Engine

8.9. The CSV Storage Engine

The CSV storage engine stores data in text files using comma-separated values format.

To enable this storage engine, use the --with-csv-storage-engine option to configure when you build MySQL.

The CSV storage engine is included in MySQL-Max binary distributions. To enable this storage engine if you build MySQL from source, invoke configure with the --with-csv-storage-engine option.

To examine the source for the CSV engine, look in the sql/examples directory of a MySQL source distribution.

When you create a CSV table, the server creates a table format file in the database directory. The file begins with the table name and has an .frm extension. The storage engine also creates a data file. Its name begins with the table name and has a .CSV extension. The data file is a plain text file. When you store data into the table, the storage engine saves it into the data file in comma-separated values format.

mysql> CREATE TABLE test(i INT, c CHAR(10)) ENGINE = CSV; Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.12 sec) mysql> INSERT INTO test VALUES(1,'record one'),(2,'record two'); Query OK, 2 rows affected (0.00 sec) Records: 2  Duplicates: 0  Warnings: 0 mysql> SELECT * FROM test; +------+------------+ | i    | c          | +------+------------+ |  1   | record one | |  2   | record two | +------+------------+ 2 rows in set (0.00 sec) 

If you examine the test.CSV file in the database directory created by executing the preceding statements, its contents should look like this:

"1", "record one" "2", "record two" 

The CSV storage engine does not support indexing.