Hello Readers!

MySQL provides an easy mechanism for writing the results of a select statement into a text file on the server.

Given a query such as

SELECT order_id,product_name,qty FROM orders

which returns three columns of data, the results can be placed into the file /folder_name/orders.txt using the query:

SELECT order_id,product_name,qty FROM orders
INTO OUTFILE '/folder_name/orders.txt'

This will create a tab-separated file, each row on its own line. To alter this behavior, it is possible to add modifiers to the query:

SELECT order_id,product_name,qty FROM orders
INTO OUTFILE '/folder_name/orders.csv'
FIELDS TERMINATED BY ','
ENCLOSED BY '"'
LINES TERMINATED BY '\n'

In this example, each field will be enclosed in double quotes, the fields will be separated by commas, and each row will be output on a new line separated by a newline (\n). Sample output of this command would look like:

"1","Tech-Recipes sock puppet","14.95" "2","Tech-Recipes chef's hat","18.95"