Question

What’s the easiest way to import a CSV into a database via web application?

UPDATE:

Small example of CSV:

stop_id, stop_name, stop_desc, stop_lat, stop_lon, zone_id, stop_url
TR, Trenton, , 40.2177778, -74.7550000, 6, 
LVTN, Levittown-Tullytown, , 40.1402778, -74.8169444, 5, 
BRST, Bristol, , 40.1047222, -74.8547222, 4, 
CROY, Croydon, , 40.0936111, -74.9066667, 4, 
EDGT, Eddington, , 40.0830556, -74.9336111, 4, 
CORN, Cornwells Heights, , 40.0716667, -74.9522222, 3, 
TORR, Torresdale, , 40.0544444, -74.9844444, 3, 
HOLM, Holmesburg Jct, , 40.0327778, -75.0236111, 2, 

Answer 1

If you take the Portable and Efficient Generic Parser for Flat Files and create a new Visual C# Console application that has a reference to it, the following code will load the contents of a CSV file into a DataTable:

using GenericParsing;
using System.Data;

namespace CsvToDataTable
{
    public class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            var pathOfCsvFile = @"C:\MyFile.csv";
            var adapter = new GenericParsing.GenericParserAdapter(pathOfCsvFile);
            DataTable data = adapter.GetDataTable();
        }
    }
}

The next step would be to save the data in data to your database server. This code assumes that the structure of the CSV file matches exactly that of a table called TableName in your database:

private static void SaveDataToDatabase(DataTable data)
{
    var connectionString = "CONNECTION STRING GOES HERE";
    var commandText = "INSERT INTO [databasename].[dbo].[TableName] " +
        "(stop_id, stop_name, stop_desc, stop_lat, stop_lon, zone_id, stop_url) " +
        "VALUES (@stop_id, @stop_name, @stop_desc, @stop_lat, @stop_lon, @zone_id, @stop_url)";

    using (var connection = new SqlConnection(connectionString))
    {
        connection.Open();
        foreach (DataRow row in data.Rows)
        {
            using (var command = new SqlCommand(commandText, connection))
            {
                command.Parameters.AddWithValue("@stop_id", row["stop_id"]);
                command.Parameters.AddWithValue("@stop_name", row["stop_name"]);
                command.Parameters.AddWithValue("@stop_desc", row["stop_desc"]);
                command.Parameters.AddWithValue("@stop_lat", row["stop_lat"]);
                command.Parameters.AddWithValue("@stop_lon", row["stop_lon"]);
                command.Parameters.AddWithValue("@zone_id", row["zone_id"]);
                command.Parameters.AddWithValue("@stop_url", row["stop_url"]);

                command.ExecuteNonQuery();
            }
        }
    }
}

You’d then want to add a call to SaveDataToDatabase in your Main method. I think there’s enough code here for you to tweak it to suit your purpose.