To create a file, use the xtrep or xtrepO command's -R option. The -R option enables you to select one of the following two file formats:

• Binary format
  Extracted data is stored in the file in binary format. For details about the binary format, see Table 4-16.
  
• DAT format
  Extracted data, including numeric data, is converted to characters and then stored in the file. For details about the DAT format, see Table 4-15.
  The DAT format is commonly called the CSV format. In the case of the DAT format, you can specify a character to be used as the delimiter between data items (separator character). To use the created file as an input file for the target database system on the target system, you must specify the separator character so that it complies with the conventions of the target database system.
  

The data types of the created file depend on the extracted database.

• HiRDB
  The same data type as for the extracted HiRDB data is assumed. For the SGMLTEXT type, if the SGMLTEXT type is not specified in the import information file, the BLOB type is assumed. You can also change other data types by specifying the -L option.
  
• ORACLE
  The extracted data is converted to HiRDB data types because HiRDB Dataextractor assumes that the data is to be imported into HiRDB. The default data type depends on the ORACLE data type, but you can change it with the -L option.
  

When there is a data linkage between ORACLE and HiRDB systems or between HiRDB systems, the character codes can be converted as specified in the environment variable in order to create files. For details about the supported character code sets, see 3.1.4 Converting the character codes of extracted data. For details about how to use this function, see 4.2.3 Additional data extraction and import functions or 5.1.3 Additional data extraction and import functions.

You use the -o option to specify a name for the created file, which is referred to as the output file. If the extracted columns contain a BLOB column, HiRDB Dataextractor creates LOB input files as well as the output file. A LOB input file is created for each LOB data item. You can use the -b option to specify a directory for storing the LOB input files. To store BLOB-column data in the same output file as for non-BLOB data without creating LOB input files, specify the XTLOBKIND environment variable.

If an output file or LOB input file to be created already exists, the -y option determines whether or not the existing file is to be overwritten. When the -y option is specified, HiRDB Dataextractor deletes the existing file and then outputs data to the file. When the -y option is omitted, HiRDB Dataextractor outputs a message and terminates processing.

The output file and LOB input files are created at the host at the following HiRDB server on the target system:

• -h option specified: Host specified with the -h option
• -h option omitted: Host specified in the XTHOST environment variable

To execute user-defined processing after file creation, use the -x option to specify the filename of the shell script you want to execute. When the filename of a shell script is specified, HiRDB Dataextractor passes control to the user-created shell script after file creation and then waits for completion of the shell script. When the shell script is completed, HiRDB Dataextractor regains control and terminates the processing.