Run SQL file in DuckDB CLI

The DuckDB CLI enables you to execute a set of SQL statements stored in a file or passed in via STDIN. There are a few variants of this capability demonstrated below.

Read and execute SQL using init CLI argument and prompt for additional SQL statementsBash

# executes SQL in create.sql, and then prompts for additional 
# SQL statements provided interactively. note that when specifying
# an init flag, the ~/.duckdbrc file is not read
duckdb -init create.sql
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Read and execute SQL using init CLI argument and immediately exit Bash

# executes SQL in create.sql and then immediately exits
# note that we're specifying a database name so that we
# can access the created data later. note that when specifying
# an init flag, the ~/.duckdbrc file is not read
duckdb -init create.sql -no-stdin mydb.ddb
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Pipe SQL file to the DuckDB CLI and exitBash

duckdb < create.sql mydb.ddb
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Ryan Boyd

Edited 11/02/24