MySQL has a command line utility mysqlimport which imports CSV files into an MySQL database. In fact, mysqimport is a command line wrapper for LOAD DATA INFILE. Whilst constructing a price comparison website, I came across the problem of uploading merchant product catalogues, which could be 1,000,000 records+, into my MySQL database. The catalogues were provided in CSV format. Great, I thought, I'll use mysqlimport. My joy however was short lived - my host does not allow the use of the LOAD command from the filesystem. No problem, I thought, I'll use PHP.
