Re: Copying an informix database with "cp"

>From: Tony Heskett <uunet!bnr.co.uk!A.Heskett> >Message-Id: <9206091755.26284@bay.bnr.co.uk> >Subject: Re: Copying an informix database with "cp" >Date: Tue, 9 Jun 92 18:55:10 BST >X-Informix-List-Id: <list.1226> > >Helge Egelund Rasmussen writes: >> I want to take a copy a informix database, ... >> Is it ok to use cp to copy the database files to another directory, >> or does the db files contain absolute pathnames? > >If the database is logged, systables contains the absolute path to >the log file. For example, > > create database foobar with log in "/u2/theskett/foobar2";> strings foobar.dbs/systables.dat | grep syslog Sometimes, altered tables acquire absolute pathnames too. You can update the pathname column in systables if you are the creator of the database or informix -- it depends slightly on which version of SE you have. Be very careful when you do this -- do the editing with a copy of the database somewhere at hand in case you botch it. If you can afford to wait until I'm next in the office, I can probably forward a shell script which disables the transaction log and removes all absolute pathnames from Systables. >> Is there a better way to copy the database? >..., but I've had complete >success with this (and ftp between architectures !), so suggest >you go right ahead. Might make sure no-ones using it before you >start the cp, tho'. Someone in Informix asked about this too -- I said: For all the Informix data types except FLOAT and SMALLFLOAT, the data is stored in a machine-independent format. That means that if your database avoids the FLOAT and SMALLFLOAT types, you can take a database from an Intel box and do a straight copy onto a Motorola box, and it will work on both machines. The same applies to p-code files, except that p-code files by definition don't contain FLOAT and SMALLFLOAT numbers -- they're all encoded as DECIMAL values. If you do have FLOAT and SMALLFLOAT values in your database, you must do the unload if you swithc machine architectures -- nothing is worse than seeing that the debtors to your company all owe 1.0E-308 and you owe 1.0E+308 to all your creditors, which was roughly the effect of moving Motorola FLOAT data to Intel boxes. Yours, Jonathan Leffler (johnl@obelix.informix.com) #include <disclaimer.h>