Functionality of Informix Load Stages

The Informix Load stage has the following functionality:

  • Support for data files that exceed the 2-GB file size limit for 64-bit file systems.
  • An option to use the Informix® DBLOAD utility for automatic bulk loading. This is useful when you run an IBM® InfoSphere® DataStage® job from an administrative account on the same machine as the Informix server.
  • Multiple bulk-loading operations through a single Informix Load stage.
  • Before- and after-link external user routines that can use arguments for link properties that you specify. The values for these link properties, such as Table Name, Database Name, Control File Name, and Data File Name, are substituted at run time.

    You can use these external routines for before-link operations (for example, initiating customized table cleanup) or after-link operations (for example, initiating custom or remote bulk loading, deleting temporary files, initiating file transfer and remote processing, recreating table indexes that were dropped before bulk loading, and so forth).

  • Support for NLS (National Language Support).

The following functionality is not supported:

  • Bulk loading multiple tables from a single link (you can do this only by providing a customized control file).
  • Generation of fixed-record data file format.
  • Multiple data files for a single bulk loading session (you can do this only by using multiple links through the Informix Load stage).
  • Automatic bulk loading option works only when you run a InfoSphere DataStage job from an administrative account on the same machine as the Windows Informix server. Otherwise, you can also use automatic bulk loading by providing an external after-link routine.

The bulk loading process does not clean up the table before loading. Use an external before-link routine to start the cleanup of the table.