You have to supply a facility to dump and reload the application database. Your users need a dump and reload facility to:

  • Convert data to ASCII format for transporting among machines or database products
  • Increase index efficiency
  • Convert from one version of the software to another

The 4GL Development System, OpenEdge Studio, and Progress Developer Studio for OpenEdge products all provide full dump/load capabilities via either the GUI Data Administration Tool, Character Data Dictionary Tool, or command line PROUTIL utility. For more information about these capabilities, see Manage the OpenEdge Database. Other OpenEdge products provide less complete dump/load capabilities. Other OpenEdge products such as Query Results provide less complete dump/load capabilities.

Note: Progress Software Corporation recommends you use binary dump and load instead of MKDUMP when moving table contents. Refer to Manage the OpenEdge Database for more information about binary dump and load, and loading of sequence values.

The Progress Developer's Toolkit includes sample utilities that you can use to create your own dump/load facility. This section covers these samples and explains how to modify them for your own use.