Given the tab-separated file employee.txt

1 \t Arthur Dent
2 \t Marvin
3 \t Zaphod Beeblebrox

$ mysql --user=user --password=password mycompany -e 'CREATE TABLE employee(id INT, name VARCHAR(100), PRIMARY KEY (id))'

$ mysqlimport --user=user --password=password mycompany employee.txt

Given the text file employee.txt

1|Arthur Dent
2|Marvin
3|Zaphod Beeblebrox

$ mysqlimport --fields-terminated-by='|' mycompany employee.txt

This example is useful for windows-like endings:

$ mysqlimport --lines-terminated-by='\r\n' mycompany employee.txt

Given the table Employee

id	Name
3	Yooden Vranx

And the file employee.txt

1 \t Arthur Dent
2 \t Marvin
3 \t Zaphod Beeblebrox

The --ignore option will ignore the entry on duplicate keys

$ mysqlimport --ignore mycompany employee.txt

id	Name
1	Arthur Dent
2	Marvin
3	Yooden Vranx

The --replace option will overwrite the old entry

$ mysqlimport --replace mycompany employee.txt

id	Name
1	Arthur Dent
2	Marvin
3	Zaphod Beeblebrox

$ mysqlimport --where="id>2" mycompany employee.txt

$ mysqlimport
    --fields-optionally-enclosed-by='"'
    --fields-terminated-by=,
    --lines-terminated-by="\r\n"
    mycompany employee.csv