Export and import

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, see ycqlsh reference.

Export schema

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

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

./bin/ycqlsh -e "DESC KEYSPACE <keyspace_name>" > <file>
  • 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>

file is the path to the resulting CQL script file.

Export data

To export your data, use the COPY TO command that queries all rows of the specified table and writes into a comma-separated values (CSV) file.

The following is a full syntax of the COPY TO command:

COPY table_name [( column_list )]
TO 'file_name'[, 'file2_name', ...] | STDIN
[WITH option = 'value' [AND ...]]
  • 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 supports multiple options. The following table outlines some of the more commonly used ones.

Option Description Default value
DELIMITER Field separator character. , (comma)
HEADER If true, output column names as the first row of data. false
PAGESIZE Page size for fetching results. 1000
PAGETIMEOUT Page timeout for fetching results. 10
MAXREQUESTS Maximum number of requests each worker processes in parallel. 6
MAXOUTPUTSIZE Maximum number of lines in the output file.
When set, the output file is split into segments no larger than this value.
Use -1 for no maximum.
-1

Import schema

To import a schema, use the SOURCE command, as follows:

ycqlsh -e "SOURCE '<file>'"

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 following is a full syntax of the COPY FROM command:

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

The following table lists commonly-used options.

Option Description Default
DELIMITER Field separator character. , (comma)
HEADER If true, the first row of data contains column names. false
CHUNKSIZE Maximum number of rows each insert. 1000
INGESTRATE Desired ingestion rate in rows per second.
Must be greater than CHUNKSIZE.
100000