mysql_query takes long time...

I've a file of about 500,000 lines, each line contains a string in variety of lengths, but no less then 3 characters and usually no more then.... 120. average of about 80, and maximum of about 250. I made a PHP script to fetch the data (using fgets), process it and insert it to a MySQL database. The problem is inserting to MySQL takes about 0.02 seconds, which looks like nothing - but when you have 500,000 lines to insert... The while goes like that: fgets from file x1 = some function about the string x2 = some other function about the string x3 = the string insert into table (field1, field2, field3) VALUES (x1, x2, x3) (pseudo-code) I was wondering, is there any faster way to perform it, assuming I have to do it with PHP? also, if it matters - the MySQL table got id in auto increment. Yours, Daniel. -- Use ROT26 for best security