| SQL adaptation guide for SAP Sybase ASE 16.x / BDL programming | |
Informix® provides two SQL instructions to export / import data from / into a database table: The UNLOAD instruction copies rows from a database table into an text file and the LOAD instruction inserts rows from an text file into a database table.
Sybase ASE has LOAD and UNLOAD instructions, but those commands are related to database backup and recovery. Do not confuse with Informix commands.
LOAD and UNLOAD instructions are supported.
The LOAD instruction does not work with tables using emulated SERIAL columns because the generated INSERT statement holds the "SERIAL" column which is actually a IDENTITY column in Sybase ASE. See the limitations of INSERT statements when using SERIALs.
In Sybase ASE, Informix DATETIME data is stored in BIGDATETIME columns, but DATETIME columns are similar to Informix DATETIME YEAR TO FRACTION(5) columns. Therefore, when using LOAD and UNLOAD, those columns are converted to text data with the format "YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss.fffff".