How can I upload a CSV file and expose it in a "views table" for Drupal 7?

Question

I am looking to create a simple table with 3 fields (columns) but at least 25 rows of possible entries. Then I want to display this in a views table (with pagers etc.) - I have done this by creating a content type with 3 custom fields, then filling out 25 of these custom content types (nodes) - then exposing all 25 nodes in a views table to get these results. However- there should be a simpler way to simply upload a CSV table that is already formatted (in Excel or Spreadsheet or text file) in rows and columns and simply use views to display the data in a simple table.

This would greatly reduce the amount of unnecessary published content as well as the workload to create a simple, searchable table from views.

Any other ways to make this work without hacking into the Drupal Database?

Answer 1

As far as I know the short answer here is you can't. Views is pretty much a query building machine.

The next best thing would be to create a script and/or use some views plugin to mass import your nodes from the CSV document and then present them to a view.

And I am proposing a scripted solution in case your nodes are more than 25. Else you might as well do it by hand :)