Performing Bulk Copies

The database server can copy data in and out of a database with a bulk copy operation. In a bulk copy, the database server sends large numbers of column values in a copy file, rather than copying each column value individually. For large amounts of data, bulk copying is far more efficient than moving values individually.

The following Informix utilities can perform bulk copies:

• DB–Access performs bulk copies with the LOAD and UNLOAD statements.
• The dbimport and dbexport utilities perform bulk copies.
• The High Performance Loader (HPL) performs bulk copies.
• The pload utility loads and unloads a database from external files.

The database server can perform bulk copies on binary (internal) or character (external) representations of opaque-type data.