Warning: This is completely untested. I don't have MS Access, and I never use Win32:OLE, but at least I know what it is.

I found the VBA script (emdeded in POD in the program below), to do this here, and I've made an attempt to convert is to Perl/OLE to give you a starting point. (But don't ask me questions cos I won't know the answers. Well, you can try, but you've been warned:)

use strict;
use warnings;
use Win32::OLE;

=VBA
Dim accessApp as Access.Application
Dim strDB as string
Dim strImport as string

set accessApp = new Access.Application
strDB = "C:\Test\MyDatabase.mdb"
strImport = "R:\Download\ImportFile.txt"
accessApp.OpenCurrentDatabase strDB
accessApp.DoCmd.TransferText acImportDelim, , "TableX", strImport, -1
accessApp.CloseCurrentDatabase
=cut

## connect to Access
my $access =  Win32::OLE->new 'Access.Application' )
    or die "Cannot create Access object:$!\n";

## connect to the database
$access->OpenCurrentDatabase( 'x:\The\path\to\your\database.mdb');

## run the import command
$access->DoCmd->TransferText(
    ',',                                            ## The delimiter
    0,                ## First line contains field names. (1 if yes)
    'YourTableName',           ## The name of the table to import to
    'x:/the/path/to/the/file.csv',                 ## file to import
    -1                       ########### Haven't a clue what this is,
    ## but you should be able to work it out by looking at the
    ## Text Transfer menu
) or die $^E;

## and done
$access->Quit();
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I tested this script and — surprise! — it works.

#!perl

use strict;
use warnings;

use Win32::OLE;
use Win32::OLE::Const 'Microsoft Access';

my $database = 'D:\Database.accdb';
my $csv_file = 'D:\Data.csv';
my $tbl_name = 'Data';

my $db = Win32::OLE->new('Access.Application')
    or die "Cannot create Microsoft Access object\n";

$db->OpenCurrentDatabase($database);

$db->DoCmd->TransferText(acImportDelim, '', $tbl_name, $csv_file, -1);

$db->Quit();

exit 0;
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It's remarkably fast, too.

The fifth argument to DoCmd->TransferText is the HasFieldNames parameter. -1 is True, which means the first line of the CSV file is a header.

The missing error checking is on-account-of-because I haven't figured it out yet. But I swear this script is slurping data into an Access database — quickly!

++BrowserUk doesn't have to get on a plane like I do.

Granted, I do not understand in detail (yet...) the approach that you are taking, but when you refer to “OLE” instead of a DBI (ODBC...) database driver, well, I rather immediately become nervous.   You do not need to approach MS-Access, the Application, when you can directly approach Jet, the Database Engine.

Nevertheless, your experience is not atypical.   Many database engines (and I do not recall if Jet is of them) provide “fast track” methods for importing large amounts of data from predictably-formatted files.   If they do so, they probably provide a non-standard way to do this in SQL.   (Microsoft, on the other hand, provides a “flat file” database driver, which is a very nifty trick.)

While the completion-times that you are experiencing with your present approach are by no means “a show-stopper,” I agree that they suggest that you have not yet found the most appropriate strategy yet.   “Think outside the box,” and even (if appropriate), “think outside the Perl.”

Please give us all more details: of what you are doing, and of what you find.

OLE

I thought it was pretty clear sundialsvc4 knows what OLE is. Hence the advice about addressing the engine via DBI rather than the application via OLE.

(I'm about to get on a plane, so I have to be brief. Sorry.)

Search Google for the keywords DoCmd and TransferText. Hopefully, this will get you closer to your objective than you are now.