On Fri, Oct 12, 2012 at 12:34 AM, Roberto Carlos <rc.1990@...> wrote:

> Create Table test15 External 'c:\mytable15.txt'
> (
> code1 Integer,
> code2 Integer,
> name char(20),
> born date default current_date,
> crlf char(2)
> );
> Commit;
>
> But when I open c:\mytable15.txt on Notepad++ 6.1.8 (UNICODE), I only can
> understand column NAME.
> The other columns are not human readble.
> Why I cannot read number and date fields on the text file, but Firebird
> show them perfectly on select statement?
>
>

Ah, you've stumbled on one of the difference between a database system and
a file system. Database's have schemas which describe the format of their
data. The internal structure of a file is opaque to a file system. Your
integer fields are stored as binary values, which are more dense and faster
to manipulate than strings. That's fine with the database which knows
where to look for the boundaries between character data and other formats.
For the file system and tools that operate on it, any data that's not a
string in the agreed-up representation is garbage.

Good luck,

Ann


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