Exporting forms, reports, and prompted queries

The form and prompted query objects are exported and imported in an encoded format that represents the object in a tabular structure. Reports are also exported in an encoded format; however, they cannot be imported.

The encoded format helps you manipulate individual parts of an object more easily. The following conditions apply when you export an object with the encoded format:

All table and field numbers are written out as four-digit numbers.
The table columns are written out in the order in which they normally appear in the object, except that the column with the maximum length is moved to the right end of the table record and associated row records.
Numeric lengths are three digits long (including leading zeros, if necessary).
A blank character is used as a delimiter in all records.
The delimiter is not written following the last character of each record.
Blanks are written in all reserved fields.
An E record is the last record written to the output file.