loadUpdateData

Loads or updates data from a CSV file into an existing table. Differs from loadData by issuing a SQL batch that checks for the existence of a record. If found, the record is UPDATEd, else the record is INSERTed. Also, generates DELETE statements for a rollback.

A value of NULL in a cell will be converted to a database NULL rather than the string NULL.

Uses

You can use loadUpdateData to update an existing CSV with new data. For example, consider a CSV called users.csv:

id,name
0,samantha
1,john
2,zelda

Imagine that you use loadData to insert these records into a table in your database whose primary key is id. Then imagine that the user John wants to go by Johnny instead, and you also get a new user named Tamanend. You can represent this in your CSV:

id,name
0,samantha
1,johnny
2,zelda
3,tamanend

Then use loadUpdateData to deploy the change to your database. Specify your CSV file, the name of the table to update, and the primary key of the table. For each row, Liquibase uses the primary key to determine whether the record exists:

If the record exists, Liquibase checks whether the database matches the CSV, and alters the table with the value in the CSV if needed. In this case, Liquibase replaces john with johnny.
If the record doesn't exist, Liquibase inserts it as a new row in the table. In this case, Liquibase adds a new row for tamanend.

Run `loadUpdateData`

To run this Change Type, follow these steps:

Add the Change Type to your changeset, as shown in the examples on this page.
Specify any required attributes. Use the table on this page to see which ones your database requires.
Deploy your changeset by running the update command:

liquibase update

Available attributes

Name	Description	Required for	Supports	Since
`catalogName`	Name of the catalog		all	3.0
`commentLineStartsWith`	Lines starting with this are treated as comment and ignored.		all
`encoding`	Encoding of the CSV file (defaults to UTF-8)		all
`file`	CSV file to load	all	all
`onlyUpdate`	If true, records with no matching database record should be ignored		all	3.3
`primaryKey`	A list of columns representing the primary key of the table (can be composite). Separate multiple values with commas. Liquibase uses the primary key column(s) to determine which columns need records to be inserted or updated. You must specify columns that exist in your CSV.	all	all
`quotchar`	The quote character for string fields containing the separator character.		all
`relativeToChangelogFile`	Specifies whether the file path is relative to the changelog file rather than looked up in the search path. Default: `false`.		all
`schemaName`	Name of the schema		all
`separator`	Character separating the fields.		all
`tableName`	Name of the table to insert or update data in	all	all
`usePreparedStatements`	Use prepared statements instead of insert statement strings if the database supports it.		all

Nested tags

Name Description Required for Supports Multiple allowed

Name	Description	Required for	Supports	Multiple allowed
`column`	Column mapping and defaults can be defined. The `header` or `index` attributes need to be defined. If the header name in the CSV is different than the column, name needs to be inserted. If no `column` is defined at all, the type is taken from a database. Otherwise, for non-string columns the type definition might be required. Note: YAML and JSON changelogs using the `column` tag must nest it within a `columns` tag.		all	yes

column

Column mapping and defaults can be defined. The header or index attributes need to be defined. If the header name in the CSV is different than the column, name needs to be inserted. If no column is defined at all, the type is taken from a database. Otherwise, for non-string columns the type definition might be required.

Note: YAML and JSON changelogs using the column tag must nest it within a columns tag.

all

yes

Nested property attributes

Name	Description
`name`	Name of the column (Required).
`header`	Name of the column in the CSV file from which the value for the column will be taken if it's different from the column name. Ignored if `index` is also defined.
`index`	Index of the column in the CSV file from which the value for the column will be taken.
`nullPlaceholder`	Liquibase 4.31.0+. Specifies a placeholder string for Liquibase to search for in a `loadData` CSV file. If the CSV contains the value you specified for `nullPlaceholder`, Liquibase replaces that value with a `NULL` SQL reference.
`type`	Data type of the column. Its value has to be one of the accepted values of LOAD_DATA_TYPE. If you want to skip loading a specific column, use the `skip` data type described earlier. Otherwise, all columns in the CSV file will be used.

Examples

databaseChangeLog:
-  changeSet:
    id:  loadUpdateData-example
    author:  liquibase-docs
    changes:
    -  loadUpdateData:
        catalogName:  cat
        columns:
        -  column:
            header:  header1
            name:  id
            type:  NUMERIC
        -  column:
            index:  3
            name:  name
            type:  BOOLEAN
        commentLineStartsWith:  //
        encoding:  UTF-8
        file:  example/users.csv
        onlyUpdate:  true
        primaryKey:  pk_id
        quotchar:  ''''
        relativeToChangelogFile:  true
        schemaName:  public
        separator:  ;
        tableName:  person
        usePreparedStatements:  true

{
    "databaseChangeLog": [
        {
            "changeSet": {
                "id": "loadUpdateData-example",
                "author": "liquibase-docs",
                "changes": [
                    {
                        "loadUpdateData": {
                            "catalogName": "cat",
                            "columns": [
                                {
                                    "column": {
                                        "header": "header1",
                                        "name": "id",
                                        "type": "NUMERIC"
                                    }
                                },
                                {
                                    "column": {
                                        "index": 3,
                                        "name": "name",
                                        "type": "BOOLEAN"
                                    }
                                }
                            ],
                            "commentLineStartsWith": "//",
                            "encoding": "UTF-8",
                            "file": "example/users.csv",
                            "onlyUpdate": true,
                            "primaryKey": "pk_id",
                            "quotchar": "'",
                            "relativeToChangelogFile": true,
                            "schemaName": "public",
                            "separator": ";",
                            "tableName": "person",
                            "usePreparedStatements": true
                        }
                    }
                ]
            }
        }
    ]
}

<databaseChangeLog
    xmlns="http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xmlns:ext="http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog-ext"
    xmlns:pro="http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/pro"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog
        http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog/dbchangelog-latest.xsd
        http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog-ext
        http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog/dbchangelog-ext.xsd
        http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/pro
        http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/pro/liquibase-pro-latest.xsd">

    <changeSet  author="liquibase-docs"  id="loadUpdateData-example">
        <loadUpdateData  catalogName="cat"
              commentLineStartsWith="//"
              encoding="UTF-8"
              file="example/users.csv"
              onlyUpdate="true"
              primaryKey="pk_id"
              quotchar="'"
              relativeToChangelogFile="true"
              schemaName="public"
              separator=";"
              tableName="person"
              usePreparedStatements="true">
            <column  header="header1"
                name="id"
                type="NUMERIC"/>
            <column  index="3"
                name="name"
                type="BOOLEAN"/>
        </loadUpdateData>
    </changeSet>

</databaseChangeLog>

Database support

Database	Notes	Auto Rollback
DB2/LUW	Supported	No
DB2/z	Supported	No
Derby	Supported	No
Firebird	Supported	No
Google BigQuery	Supported	No
H2	Supported	No
HyperSQL	Supported	No
INGRES	Supported	No
Informix	Supported	No
MariaDB	Supported	No
MySQL	Supported	No
Oracle	Supported	No
PostgreSQL	Supported	No
Snowflake	Supported	No
SQL Server	Supported	No
SQLite	Supported	No
Sybase	Supported	No
Sybase Anywhere	Supported	No

Troubleshooting

`CLOB` data type handling

In Liquibase 4.29.2 and earlier, all CSV entries in a clob type column are assumed to be a path to a file. If Liquibase finds that file, it inserts the contents of the file into the table you're updating. If not, the execution stops with an error:

Caused by: java.io.FileNotFoundException: The file ExampleFileName was not found in the configured search path:

In Liquibase 4.30.0 and later, all CSV entries in a clob type column are assumed to be a path to a file by default. If Liquibase finds that file, it inserts the contents of the file into the table you're updating. If not, Liquibase inserts the string value as-is.