Importing data to the System i™ platform when the from-file is a database file or DDM file

 

You can use the Copy from Import File (CPYFRMIMPF) command to import data from a database file or DDM file.

To import data from a database file or DDM file, follow these steps:

1. Create an import file for the data that you are going to copy to an externally described file. The import file can be a database source file, an externally described database file that has one field, or a program-described physical file. If the file has one field, the data type must be CHARACTER, IGC OPEN, IGC EITHER, IGC ONLY, GRAPHIC, fixed length or variable length. The record length of the import file should be long enough to contain the longest record of the file being sent to the system, including any delimiters.

2. Send the data to the import file or from-file. Sending the data into the import file causes the necessary ASCII to EBCDIC data conversions to occur. There are several ways to import the data such as:

   • TCP/IP file transfer (text transfer)

   • iSeries™ Access support (file transfer, ODBC)

   • CPYFRMTAP command (copy from tape file)

3. Create an externally described database file, or DDM file, which will contain the resultant data of the import file.

4. Use the CPYFRMIMPF command to copy (translate or parse the records) from the import file to the to-file. For importing large files, you can choose to have the import file split-up into multiple parts so that each part can be processed in parallel on an n-way multiprocessor system.

 

Parent topic:

Using the Copy From Import File (CPYFRMIMPF) command to copy between different systems

 

Related concepts

Using the Copy From Import File (CPYFRMIMPF) command to copy between different systems
Parallel data loader support to use with the CPYFRMIMPF command