GT.M Database Endian Conversion - UNIX

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Background

GT.M is implemented and supported on both little endian and big endian format systems. x86 GNU/Linux and Alpha/AXP Tru64 UNIX and OpenVMS are little endian systems, whereas pSeries AIX, SPARC Solaris and PA-RISC HP-UX are big endian systems. GT.M database files contain binary data in addition to ASCII text. A binary data field could be longer than a byte. For performance considerations, GT.M stores such data in the native format, i.e., data elements are stored in the endian format of the system on which a database is created and used. Therefore, a database file created in a given endian format cannot be used directly on a system of the other endian format. To migrate data from an endian platform to one with a different endian format in prior versions of GT.M, one had to export data into ASCII format with a MUPIP EXTRACT -FORMAT=ZWR on the source platform and import with a MUPIP LOAD on the target platform.