PowerShell for SQL Server Essentials

Exporting data using bcp

SQL Server has a number of command prompt utilities that assist with database operations. All of these can be invoked from PowerShell using the Invoke-Expression cmdlet.

bcp is a well-known utility that allows for the fast import and export of data. The data transfer can be fairly straightforward; for example, if taking all the records from a table to a CSV file. It could also be more complex, which will require supplying a format file to specify the structure of the data. If we wanted to export all the records from the Album table in the Chinook database using a trusted connection with character data type, the bcp command will look like the following:

bcp Chinook.dbo.Album out C:\Temp\results.txt -T -c

To do this within ...