dbimport to the older Informix

Hello. We have a task to move from Informix 9 to Informix 14. We tested our program on Informix 14 and so far everything looks fine. We will change the production version soon. So while we decide what to do if something goes wrong. Of course, we don't want to lose data. Will there be any problems if after some time we decide to go back to Informix 9 and run dbexport on Informix 14 and dbimport on Informix 9? ------------------------------ Alexander Ivanov ------------------------------ #Informix

Hi, not sure if it works back to version 9.x but onmode -b is meant to revert internal structures in order to be able to startup database with older version without a restore. That way, the old binaries might be able to boot the database when it has been converted to 14.x. (maybe you will need to regenerate the update statistics (as recommended after an upgrade). You can try this on a converted instance of 9.x to 14.10. https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/informix-servers/14.10?topic=1410-run-reversion-utility Otherwise, dbimport should work, dbexport should be done with -ss flag in order to get the same table sizes. When you want to double check it: Try to generate the table structure (using dbschema from the existing 9.x instance), make a test DB in new 14.x instance, load the schema with dbaccess and then dbexport -ss and dbimport the test DB in 9.x instance, just to make sure the syntax has not changed. Best,

Alexander: I agree with Marcus. That should work as long as you have not added any v14 specific features to the database(s) that v9 does not support after creating the new databases. As far as verifying that it will not be a problem, you can just use dbschema -ss against both copies of the database for this or my myschema utility as well and compare the outputs. If the schema outputs are identical except for trivialities like EXTENT and NEXT clauses etc., then you are good to go. The data itself is completely compatible. Art ------------------------------ Art S. Kagel, President and Principal Consultant ASK Database Management Corp. www.askdbmgt.com ------------------------------