Exporting and Importing Data

Two SQL Server utilities can be used to transfer data. SQL Transfer Manager provides an easy, graphical way to transfer both objects and data from one SQL Server database to another. Bulk copy program (bcp) is a command line utility that copies SQL Server data to or from an operating-system file in a user-specified format. In addition, SQL Enterprise Manager can be used to generate SQL Scripts, which are the statements that are used to create database objects.

This chapter explains how to use SQL Transfer Manager and the bcp utility to transfer data. You can also transfer data using DB-Library functions from inside an application program or by using the SELECT statement to transfer data out and the INSERT statement to transfer data in. This chapter also explains how to use SQL Enterprise Manager to generate SQL scripts.

For information about DB-Library, see Microsoft SQL Server Programming DB-Library for C. For more information about the SELECT and INSERT statements, see the Microsoft SQL Server Transact-SQL Reference. There are no SQL commands for the bulk transfer of data.

For more information choose one of the following topics:

Using SQL Transfer Manager

Using the Bulk Copy Program

Generating SQL Scripts

Transferring Data Between Processor Architectures

Transferring Data Between SQL Server Versions