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SQL programmingYou can use the HCL OneDB™ implementation of the SQL language to develop applications for HCL OneDB™ database servers.
Guide to SQL: SyntaxThe HCL OneDB™ Guide to SQL: Syntax describes the syntax of the statements, data types, expressions, operators, and built-in functions of the HCL OneDB™ dialect of the SQL language.
SQL statementsThis chapter describes the syntax and semantics of SQL statements that are recognized by HCL OneDB™.
CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE StatementUse the CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE statement to define an external source that is not part of your database to load and unload data for your database.
External Table Examples The examples in this section illustrate different ways to load and unload data using external tables.
Unloading Data to External Tables from HCL OneDB™You unload data by creating an external table and inserting the data into it, or by selecting data from an internal table into an external file.
Unloading to a Fixed-Text FileYou can unload data from the database into fixed format files.

Unloading to a Fixed-Text File

You can unload data from the database into fixed format files.

About this task

The following SQL statements unload the employee table in fixed text format into the emp_ext external table:

CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE emp_ext 
   ( name CHAR(18) EXTERNAL CHAR(20),
     hiredate DATE EXTERNAL CHAR(10),
     address VARCHAR(40) EXTERNAL CHAR(40),
     empno INTEGER EXTERNAL CHAR(6) )
USING (
   FORMAT 'FIXED',
    DATAFILES ("DISK:/work2/mydir/emp.fix")
    );
INSERT INTO emp_ext SELECT * FROM employee;

These statements create a fixed-text file with 20 character positions in the first field, the next 10 character positions in the second field, and so on. Because you are choosing the rows with a SELECT statement, you can format the SELECT list in any way that you want.