How do you import a large MS SQL .sql file?

I use RedGate SQL data compare and generated a .sql file, so I could run it on my local machine. But the problem is that the file is over 300mb, which means I can't do copy and paste because the clipboard won't be able to handle it, and when I try to open the file in SQL Server Management Studio I get an error about the file being too large.

Is there a way to run a large .sql file? The file basically contains data for two new tables.

From the command prompt, start up sqlcmd:

sqlcmd -S <server> -i C:\<your file here>.sql 

Just replace <server> with the location of your SQL box and <your file here> with the name of your script. Don't forget, if you're using a SQL instance the syntax is:

sqlcmd -S <server>\instance.

Here is the list of all arguments you can pass sqlcmd:

Sqlcmd            [-U login id]          [-P password]
  [-S server]            [-H hostname]          [-E trusted connection]
  [-d use database name] [-l login timeout]     [-t query timeout] 
  [-h headers]           [-s colseparator]      [-w screen width]
  [-a packetsize]        [-e echo input]        [-I Enable Quoted Identifiers]
  [-c cmdend]            [-L[c] list servers[clean output]]
  [-q "cmdline query"]   [-Q "cmdline query" and exit] 
  [-m errorlevel]        [-V severitylevel]     [-W remove trailing spaces]
  [-u unicode output]    [-r[0|1] msgs to stderr]
  [-i inputfile]         [-o outputfile]        [-z new password]
  [-f  | i:[,o:]] [-Z new password and exit] 
  [-k[1|2] remove[replace] control characters]
  [-y variable length type display width]
  [-Y fixed length type display width]
  [-p[1] print statistics[colon format]]
  [-R use client regional setting]
  [-b On error batch abort]
  [-v var = "value"...]  [-A dedicated admin connection]
  [-X[1] disable commands, startup script, environment variables [and exit]]
  [-x disable variable substitution]
  [-? show syntax summary] 

I had exactly the same issue and had been struggling for a while then finally found the solution which is to set -a parameter to the sqlcmd in order to change its default packet size:

sqlcmd -S [servername] -d [databasename] -i [scriptfilename] -a 32767

You can use this tool as well. It is really useful.

BigSqlRunner

1. Take command prompt with administrator privilege

2. Change directory to where the .sql file stored

3. Execute the following command

   sqlcmd -S 'your server name' -U 'user name of server' -P 'password of server' -d 'db name'-i script.sql

I am using MSSQL Express 2014 and none of the solutions worked for me. They all just crashed SQL. As I only needed to run a one off script with many simple insert statements I got around it by writing a little console app as a very last resort:

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        RunScript();
    }

    private static void RunScript()
    {
        My_DataEntities db = new My_DataEntities();

        string line;

        System.IO.StreamReader file =
           new System.IO.StreamReader("c:\\ukpostcodesmssql.sql");
        while ((line = file.ReadLine()) != null)
        {
            db.Database.ExecuteSqlCommand(line);
        }

        file.Close();
    }
}