Sams Teach Yourself MySQL in 21 Days, Second Edition

LOAD DATA INFILE

Syntax:

LOAD DATA [LOW_PRIORITY | CONCURRENT] [LOCAL]
  INFILE 'filename'
  [REPLACE | IGNORE]
  INTO TABLE table_name
  [FIELDS [TERMINATED BY 'char']
    [[OPTIONALLY] ENCLOSED BY 'char']
    [ESCAPED BY 'char' ]]
  [LINES TERMINATED BY 'char']
  [IGNORE num LINES]
  [(column_list)]

Description: Reads the text file given by filename and imports data into the table given by table_name. Works the same as mysqlimport.

By specifying LOW_PRIORITY, execution waits until no other clients are reading from the table. By specifying CONCURRENT with a MyISAM table, other clients can read from the table while LOAD DATA INFILE is executing.

LOCAL means that a local file on the client, rather than the server, will be used for reading.

The REPLACE and IGNORE ...