>From: "Claudio Valderrama C." <cvalde@...>
>""Nick Upson"" <uebridger@...> wrote in message
>news:F27azUSxvjPkQTGpaoG000005fa@......
> > IB4, IRIX
> >
> > I created an external table and all was fine, then I did a backup &
> > restore and the column alignment has gone wrong, the column contents
> > appear as if there is a large character field at the front of the
> > file (there isn't).
>
>I don't understand well. You define an external table poiting to a valid
>file. You can read from it. Then you do a backup. Isn't a backup supposed
>to
>convert this table into an internal table? Why do I have the idea than in
>IB4, this option
>-CO(NVERT) backup external files as tables
>wasn't available?

that's the first I'd heard of a '-covert' option to gbak, besides I need
this to remain an external table.

>Anyway, your issue seems to be that the external table is still an external
>table after the restore, so it should be read again from the ASCII file. If
>this is the case, can you query the system tables to know if the
>information
>about fields and lengths is correct? I found some fields for external
>tables
>definitions in the system tables that contrary to my expectation, aren't
>used.

I don't know what to extract

> > If I use the extracted metadata to create a new external table
> > pointing at the same file, it's fine.
>
>Then you should compare both metadatas, please.

that's what I did and they are identical

>Maybe it's a bug in v4's gbak?

but has it been fixed in a later version?

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