Teradata Parallel Data Pump

Chapter 1: Overview
Operating Features and Capabilities
Data Conversion Capabilities
Teradata TPump can redefine the data type specification of numeric, character, and date input
data so it matches the type specification of its destination column in the Teradata TPump
table on Teradata Database.
For example, if an input field with numeric type data is targeted for a column with a character
data type specification, Teradata TPump can change the input data specification to character
before inserting it into the table.
The datadesc specification of the Teradata TPump FIELD command is used to convert input
data to a different type before inserting it into a table on Teradata Database.
The types of data conversions which can be specified are:
• Numeric-to-numeric (for example integer-to-decimal)
• Character-to-numeric
• Character-to-date
• Date-to-character
Note: Redundant conversions, such as integer-to-integer, are legal and necessary to support
the zoned decimal format. For more information about the zoned decimal format, data types,
and data conversions, see SQL Data Types and Literals.
Checkpoints
Teradata TPump supports the use of checkpoints. Checkpoints are entries posted to a restart
log table at regular intervals during the Teradata TPump data transfer operation. If processing
stops while a Teradata TPump job is running, the job can be restarted at the most recent
checkpoint.
For example, assume 1,000,000 records are being loaded into a table and have specified
checkpoints every 50,000 records. Then Teradata TPump pauses and posts an entry to the
restart log table whenever multiples of 50,000 records are successfully sent to Teradata
Database.
If the job stops after record 60,000 has been loaded, the job can be restarted at the record
immediately following the last checkpoint—record 50,001.
To enable the checkpoint function, specify a checkpoint value in the BEGIN LOAD command.
For more information, see “BEGIN LOAD” on page 96.
Unicode Character Sets
UTF-8 and UTF-16 are two of the standard ways of encoding Unicode character data. Teradata
Database supports UTF-8 and UTF-16client character sets. The UTF-8 client character set
supports UTF-8 encoding. Currently, Teradata Database supports UTF-8 characters that can
consist of from one to three bytes. The UTF-16client character set supports UTF-16 encoding.
Currently, Teradata Database supports the Unicode 5.0 standard, where each defined
character requires exactly 16 bits.
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