MariaDB LOAD_FILE() Function

In MariaDB, the LOAD_FILE() function reads a given file and returns the file contents as a string.

MariaDB LOAD_FILE() Syntax

Here is the syntax of the MariaDB LOAD_FILE() function:

LOAD_FILE(filepath)

Parameters

filepath

Required. The path to the file to read. You should specify a full path.

If you do not provide a parameter, MariaDB will report an error: ERROR 1582 (42000): Incorrect parameter count in the call to native function 'LOAD_FILE'.

Return value

The MariaDB LOAD_FILE() function returns a string which is the file content of the file specified by the parameter.

If the specified file cannot be found, or if there is no file access permission, the LOAD_FILE() function will return NULL.

If the argument is NULL, the LOAD_FILE() function will return NULL.

MariaDB LOAD_FILE() Examples

The following is the content of the text file d:\test.txt:

Hello World

To read the contents of this file, use the following statement with the MariaDB LOAD_FILE() function:

SELECT LOAD_FILE('d:\\test.txt');

Output:

+---------------------------+
| LOAD_FILE('d:\\test.txt') |
+---------------------------+
| Hello World               |
+---------------------------+

Conclusion

The MariaDB LOAD_FILE() function returns the contents of the file specified by the parameter as a string.