Jeremy Guan

Recently I need to import data from CSV files into databases frequently. This post just records the process of conversion I’m using in Vim.

Assuming the CSV file is:

1, A , a
1, B , b
1, C , c

On each line, clean up all the spaces preceding and following the commas “,”.
:%s/\s*,\s*/,/g

Replace the beginning of each line by “(“.
:%s/^/(

Replace the end of each line by “)”.
:%s/$/),

Add double quotes (“) to text fields.
:%s/\(.*\),\(.*\),\(.*\)/\1,"\2","\3"

Or we can combine last three steps into one command.
:%s/\(.*\),\(.*\),\(.*\)/(\1,"\2","\3"),

At last, complete the INSERT statement and don’t forget to replace the last comma with semicolon “;”.

INSERT INTO table_name VALUES
(1,"A","a"),
(1,"B","b"),
(1,"C","c");