Is SQL Server Bulk Insert Transactional?

Question

If I run the following query in SQL Server 2000 Query Analyzer:

BULK INSERT  OurTable 
FROM 'c:\OurTable.txt' 
WITH (CODEPAGE = 'RAW', DATAFILETYPE = 'char', FIELDTERMINATOR = '\t', ROWS_PER_BATCH = 10000, TABLOCK)

On a text file that conforms to OurTable's schema for 40 lines, but then changes format for the last 20 lines (lets say the last 20 lines have fewer fields), I receive an error. However, the first 40 lines are committed to the table. Is there something about the way I'm calling Bulk Insert that makes it not be transactional, or do I need to do something explicit to force it to rollback on failure?

Answer 1

Try to put it inside user-defined transaction and see what happens. Actually it should roll-back as you described it.

Answer 2

BULK INSERT acts as a series of individual INSERT statements and thus, if the job fails, it doesn't roll back all of the committed inserts.

It can, however, be placed within a transaction so you could do something like this:

BEGIN TRANSACTION
BEGIN TRY
BULK INSERT  OurTable 
FROM 'c:\OurTable.txt' 
WITH (CODEPAGE = 'RAW', DATAFILETYPE = 'char', FIELDTERMINATOR = '\t', 
   ROWS_PER_BATCH = 10000, TABLOCK)
COMMIT TRANSACTION
END TRY
BEGIN CATCH
ROLLBACK TRANSACTION
END CATCH