Question

Below is a table store in database:

 ID     Age     SectionID
 111    29       NULL
 100    30       NULL

To update Column Age with with a text file(see below for sample data)

 ID     Age     SectionID
 111    29       231
 100    30       456

The text file comes without the column names.
I tired using the import wizard but seems its adding all the columns to the table again. I only need to add the SectionID column to the table. Can anyone tell me how to select the settings to make that happen? Thanks!!!!!!

Answer 1

You can use a BULK INSERT to insert the data into a temporary table, do an UPDATE and delete the temporary table.

Example:

CREATE TABLE #TEMP (
  ID INT,
  Age INT,
  SectionID INT)
GO

BULK INSERT #TEMP
FROM 'HereGoesYourFileName'
WITH
 (
    FIELDTERMINATOR =' ',
    ROWTERMINATOR = '\n'
  )    
GO

UPDATE ot
SET ot.SectionID = t.SectionID
FROM OriginalTable ot JOIN #TEMP t ON ot.ID = t.ID
GO

DROP TABLE #TEMP
GO