About Importing, Exporting, Loading, and Unloading Data |
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Oracle Database XE can copy data between itself and other Oracle databases, and between itself and external files. Data copying is accomplished by exporting and importing data, and by unloading and loading data. The following table defines these terms.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Exporting | Copying database data to external files for import into another Oracle database only. The files are in a proprietary binary format. |
| Importing | Copying data into the database from external files that were created by exporting from another Oracle database. |
| Unloading | Copying database data to external text files for consumption by another Oracle database or another application (such as a spreadsheet application). The text files are in an industry-standard format such as tab-delimited or comma-delimited (CSV).
|
| Loading | Copying data into the database from external text files that are in either a standard delimited format or in any of the formats that are supported by the Oracle SQL*Loader utility. |
Data exported from any Oracle Database edition (Express Edition, Standard Edition, and Enterprise Edition), can be imported into any other edition.