How to insert a dataframe into a SQL Server table?

Question

I'm trying to upload a dataframe to a SQL Server table, I tried breaking it down to a simple SQL query string..

library(RODBC)
con <- odbcDriverConnect("driver=SQL Server; server=database")

df <- data.frame(a=1:10, b=10:1, c=11:20)

values <- paste("(",df$a,",", df$b,",",df$c,")", sep="", collapse=",")

cmd <- paste("insert into MyTable values ", values)

result <- sqlQuery(con, cmd, as.is=TRUE)

..which seems to work but does not scale very well. Is there an easier way?

Answer 1

[edited] Perhaps pasting the names(df) would solve the scaling problem:

   values <- paste( " df[  , c(", 
                     paste( names(df),collapse=",") ,
                                   ")] ", collapse="" ) 
      values
      #[1] " df[  , c( a,b,c )] "

You say your code is "working".. I would also have thought one would use sqlSave rather than sqlQuery if one wanted to "upload".

I would have guessed this would be more likely to do what you described:

 sqlSave(con, df, tablename = "MyTable")