Question

My gps device writes its data to a text file in my server. Now i want sql server to read it and store values in a table. How to get started with this kind of a scenario? Any suggestion.

EDIT:
Consider it is an existing file with 10 rows and i have already imported it. Now the file gets updated with new 10 rows. How to import the new rows to sql server?

Answer 1

Here is a sample solution:

/** Table to hold GPS data **/

CREATE TABLE Pings (
  RowID     INT NOT NULL IDENTITY(1,1) PRIMARY KEY,
  PingDate  DATETIME,
  Lat       FLOAT,
  Long      FLOAT
) 

/** View for bulk insert **/

CREATE VIEW V_Pings AS 
SELECT 
  PingDate,
  Lat,
  Long
FROM Pings

The GPS data comes from a pipe-delimited file > C:\GPS\Pings

2010/01/01 00:00:00|30.1|50.1
2010/01/01 00:00:01|30.1|50.2
2010/01/01 00:00:02|30.1|50.3
2010/01/01 00:00:03|30.1|50.4
2010/01/01 00:00:04|30.1|50.5

You have a stored procedure which is being called intermittently via SQL Agent:

CREATE PROCEDURE usp_LoadPings AS 

DECLARE 
  @firstRow INT,
  @sql NVARCHAR(1000)

SELECT TOP 1 @firstRow = RowID + 1
FROM Pings ORDER BY RowID DESC

SET @sql = N'
BULK INSERT V_Pings
FROM ''C:\GPS\Pings.txt''
WITH (
  FIELDTERMINATOR =''|'',
  ROWTERMINATOR =''\n'',
  FIRSTROW = ' + CAST(@firstRow AS NVARCHAR(50)) + '
)'

EXEC(@sql)

The stored procedure will not load data unless there is a new set of rows starting after the last row loaded in the table.

I realize this simply looks like an implementation of devmake’s answer but I actually created it separately. That said, I upvoted his answer since he posted his first.