Manifest File

The manifest file is a binary file that contains information about the database, such as database devices, server information, and database information.

The manifest file can be created only if the set of databases that occupy those devices are isolated and self-contained. The manifest file contains:

Source server information that is server-specific or common to all the databases, such as the version of the source SAP ASE, any upgrade version, page size, character set, sort order, and the date the manifest file was created.
Device information that is derived from the sysdevices catalog. The manifest file contains the information on the first and last virtual pages, the status, and the logical and the physical names of the devices involved.
Database information that is derived from the sysdatabases catalog. The manifest file contains information on the database name, dbid, login name of the database administrator (dba), suid of the owner, pointer to the transaction log, creation date, status bits from the status fields in sysdatabases, date of the last dump tran, and the diskmap entries of the databases involved.

Warning! Operations that perform character translations of the file contents (such as ftp) corrupt the file, unless they are performed in binary mode.