SQL Server 2008 – Writing Select Result to a CSV File

sql-server-2008t-sql

We need to write the SELECT query results to a csv file. How can it be done using T-SQL in SQL Server 2008 r2? I know that it can be done in SSIS, but for some reasons, we don't have this option.

I tried to use the suggested proc in the article below, but when I run the proc, SQL complains that can't run sys.sp_OACreate and sys.sp_OADestroy which are called in this proc.

Do you know how we can turn on these components or know any better way to write to a file using T-SQL?

Thanks in advance.

Best Answer

Use BCP utility

bcp "SELECT Col1,Col2,Col3 FROM MyDatabase.dbo.MyTable" queryout "D:\MyTable.csv" -c -t , -S SERVERNAME -T

The -c argument specifies character output, as opposed to SQL's native binary format; this defaults to tab-separated values, but -t , changes the field terminator to commas. -T specifies Windows authentication ("trusted connection"), otherwise use -U MyUserName -P MyPassword.

This doesn't export column headers by default. You need to use a UNION ALL for headers

OR

Use SQLCMD

SQLCMD -S SERVERNAME -E -Q "SELECT Col1,Col2,Col3 FROM MyDatabase.dbo.MyTable"
-s "," -o "D:\MyData.csv"

OR

Use Powershell

Here is a link to an article. If you end up using this, you might want to append -notype after Export-Csv $extractFile to get rid of the unnecessary column on the output file.

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