BULK INSERT into specific columns?

Question

I want to bulk insert columns of a csv file to specific columns of a destination table. Description - destination table has more columns than my csv file. So, I want the csv file columns to go to the right target columns using BULK INSERT.

Is this possible ? If yes, then how do I do it ?

I saw the tutorial and code at - http://blog.sqlauthority.com/2008/02/06/sql-server-import-csv-file-into-sql-server-using-bulk-insert-load-comma-delimited-file-into-sql-server/

and http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/439843/Handling-BULK-Data-insert-from-CSV-to-SQL-Server

BULK INSERT dbo.TableForBulkData
FROM 'C:\BulkDataFile.csv'
WITH
(
FIELDTERMINATOR = ',',
ROWTERMINATOR = '\n'
)

They don't show you how you can control where data is inserted.

Answer 1

Yes, you can do this. The easiest way is to just create a View that Selects from the target table, listing the columns that you want the data to go to, in the order that they appear in the source file. Then BULK INSERT to your View instead of directly to the Table.