Export and import data

• YSQL
• YCQL

You use the ycqlsh script to export and import YCQL data. For details on how to use the script to connect to a YugabyteDB cluster, as well as the full list of available options, refer to the ycqlsh reference.

Export schema

You use the DESCRIBE command (abbreviated to DESC here) to export the schema.

To export the schema of a single keyspace, run the following command:

./bin/ycqlsh -e "DESC KEYSPACE <keyspace-name>" > <file>

Where:

• <keyspace-name> is the name of the keyspace to be exported.
• <file> is the path to the resulting CQL script file.

To export the schema of every keyspace, run the following command:

ycqlsh -e "DESC SCHEMA" > <file>

Where <file> is the path to the resulting CQL script file.

Export data

To export your data, use the COPY TO command. It will query all rows of the specified table and write into a CSV (comma-separated values) file.

The full syntax of the COPY TO command is as follows:

COPY table_name [( column_list )]
TO 'file_name'[, 'file2_name', ...] | STDIN
[WITH option = 'value' [AND ...]]

Where:

• table_name is the name of the table to be exported.
• column-list is an optional comma-separated list of column names.
• file-name is the name of the file to which to export the data.

The command also supports multiple options. The following table outlines some of the more commonly used ones.

Import schema

To import a schema, use the SOURCE command:

ycqlsh -e "SOURCE '<file>'"

Where: <file> is the path to the CQL script file from which to import the schema.

Import data

After you import the schema, use the COPY FROM command to import the actual data from one or more CSV files.

The full syntax of the COPY FROM command is as follows:

COPY table_name [( column_list )]
FROM 'file_name'[, 'file2_name', ...] | STDIN
[WITH option = 'value' [AND ...]]

Where:

• table_name is the name of the destination table.
• column-list is an optional comma-separated list of column names.
• file-name is the name of the file from which to import the data.

Some commonly-used options are: