Native Format

The -n option creates files using native (operating system-specific) formats.

Native formats usually create a more compact operating system file. For example, this command copies the publishers table to the file called pub_out, using native data format:

bcp pubs2..publishers out pub_out -n

The contents of pub_out are:

0736^MNew Age Books^FBoston^BMA0877^PBinnet  & Hardley^J
Washington^BDC1389^TAlgodata Infosystems^HBerkeley^BCA

bcp prefixed each field, except the pub_id, which is a char(4) datatype, with an ASCII character equal to the data length in the field. For example, “New Age Books” is 13 characters long, and ^M (Ctrl+m) is ASCII 13.

All the table data stored in pub_out is in the form of human-readable char or varchar data. In a table with numeric data, bcp writes the information to the file in the operating system’s data representation format, which may not be human-readable.

bcp can copy data out to a file either as its native (database) datatype or as any datatype for which implicit conversion is supported for the datatype in question. bcp copies user-defined datatypes as their base datatype or as any datatype for which implicit conversion is supported. For more information on datatype conversions, see dbconvert in the Open Client DB-Library/C Reference Manual or the Adaptive Server Enterprise Reference Manual.

The bcp utility does not support copying data in native format from different operating systems; for example, copying from Windows to UNIX. Use the -c flag if you need to use bcp to copy files from one operating system to another.

Warning! Do not use row terminator (-t) or field terminator (-r) parameters with bcp in native format. Results are unpredictable and data may be corrupted.