Entering products directly into database

Hi am trying to enter products directly into the database as I have
thousands to populate.

From what I gather there are 3 tables a that contain information
relating to products :

products
products_description
products_to_categories

If have made local versions of these tables to get the relevant
field information and run a script to populate each field with the
information I require taking from a different table.

I am using my own product_ids and wont be adding products through
the add product script within zencart.

I am looking to insert my own unique product ids and do not want zen cart to assign ones.

Or would it be better if I add new table rows with myproduct id

Have you looked at Easy Populate in the Free Software Add Ons?

nevermind its working as expected just that its removing the leading zeros that I need to keep so this more a mysql issue than a zen cart issue.