This article describes file formats and supported encodings when loading data from files using the IMPORT command.
You can use the IMPORT command to load files directly from your local file system or from a remote file storage service. To improve performance when loading from a remote storage service, you can split the files into several parts to allow Exasol to read/write the data in parallel.
Exasol supports loading data from files in comma-separated value (CSV) and fixed block value (FBV) formats stored locally or in supported remote services. This article describes the data formatting rules and supported encodings in CSV and FBV files.
Exasol 2025.1 and later also supports bulk loading data in Parquet files stored in AWS S3 buckets by using IMPORT. To learn more, see Load data from Parquet files in Amazon S3 on AWS.
If integration with an external bulk loading tool is required you can use the command-line tool EXAjload, which is available as a part of the JDBC driver package. You can use EXAjload to start a loading job using a script without opening a JDBC connection.
To learn more, use ./exajload -help (Linux) or java -jar ./exajload.jar -help (Windows) after installing the JDBC driver. For additional information and examples, see EXAjload: advanced techniques.