Export/Import Fundamentals
The Export and Import utilities can be used in two different modes:
- Interactive
In this mode, the utility prompts the user for the information needed for the task.
- Command line
In this mode, the information needed for the task is included either on the command line or in a specified parameter file.
The interactive mode for the Export and Import utilities is essentially a legacy interface, left over from earlier releases of the software. Using the command-line interface gives you more flexibility.
If you use the Export and Import utilities for moving data between different versions of Oracle, you will need to pay attention to which version of the utilities you use. The Import utility used must be the same as the version of the database that is receiving the data, and the Export version must be the same as the lower of the two versions being used.
To run any version of Export or Import, you must run the catexp.sql or catalog.sql script to prepare the database for these operations.
Tip
Throughout this chapter, we’ll show the Export command and Import command names as exp and imp, respectively. Those will be the correct command names on most systems. Note, however, that in older Oracle releases on Windows systems, release numbers were embedded in the executable names, so on such systems you may encounter names like imp80, exp73, and so on. If you have any doubt, refer to your platform-specific documentation for the specific name used to invoke these utilities on your ...