Normally you'll call out to your database's shell program to load the file for you. For example, Krang's DB creation code looks like this:

    # load all sql files as the DBUser
    my @sql_dirs = pkg('File')->find_all('sql');
    print STDERR "Loading SQL for '$name' from " . join(', ', @sql_dir
+s) . 
      "...\n" if $verbose;
    $cmd = "cat " . join(' ', map { catfile($_, '*.sql') } @sql_dirs) 
+. 
      " | mysql -u$user $name ";
    $cmd .= " -p$pass" if $pass;
    $cmd .= " -h$hostname" if defined $hostname;
    $cmd .= " -v" if $verbose > 1;
    print "Running '$cmd'\n" if $verbose > 1;
    system($cmd) && die "Couldn't load SQL: $?: $!";
[download]

That loads all the .sql files contained in an SQL directory using the mysql shell. The call in the first line is part of Krang's addon system which allows plugins to define their own SQL.

-sam