Once you decide what data to export and define the appropriate tables in the schema, you are ready to identify them as export-only tables. As mentioned before, export-only tables are defined in the database schema just like any other table. So in the case of the flight application, we need to add the export tables to our schema. The following example illustrates (in bold) the addition of an export-only table for reservations with a subset of columns from the normal reservation table.

    . . .

CREATE TABLE Reservation (
   ReserveID INTEGER UNIQUE NOT NULL,
   FlightID INTEGER NOT NULL,
   CustomerID INTEGER NOT NULL,
   Seat VARCHAR(5) DEFAULT NULL,
   Confirmed TINYINT DEFAULT '0',
   PRIMARY KEY(ReserveID)
);
CREATE TABLE Reservation_final (
   ReserveID INTEGER UNIQUE NOT NULL,
   FlightID INTEGER NOT NULL,
   CustomerID INTEGER NOT NULL,
   Seat VARCHAR(5) DEFAULT NULL
);
     . . .

Again, it is a good idea to distinguish export-only tables by their table name, so anyone reading the schema understands their purpose. Once you add the necessary tables to the schema, you then need to define them as export-only tables and assign them to a stream. You do this by adding an EXPORT TABLE statement for each table to the schema. For example:

EXPORT TABLE export_customer TO STREAM archive;
EXPORT TABLE export_flight TO STREAM archive;
EXPORT TABLE reservation_final TO STREAM archive;

If a table is not listed in an EXPORT TABLE statement, it is not exported. In the preceding example, the export_customer, export_flight, and reservation_final tables are identified as the tables that will be included in the export stream called archive. In addition, since they are export-only tables, inserting data into these tables will have no effect if export is disabled in the deployment file for the archive stream.

If you want to export to different locations, you can assign the export tables to different streams, then export each stream separately. For example, if you want to export the reservations to a log file but the customer and flight records to an archival database, you can assign the tables to two different streams:

EXPORT TABLE export_customer TO STREAM archive;
EXPORT TABLE export_flight TO STREAM archive;
EXPORT TABLE reservation_final TO STREAM log;

Note that no changes are required to the client application. The configuration of streams and export targets is all done through the schema and deployment file.

You can also specify whether the export-only tables are partitioned or not using the PARTITION TABLE statement in the schema. For example, if an export table is a copy of a normal data table, it can be partitioned on the same column. However, partitioning is not necessary for export-only tables. Whether they are partitioned or "replicated", since no storage is associated with the export table, you can INSERT into the table in either a single-partitioned or multi-partitioned stored procedure. In either case, the export connector ensures that at least one copy of the tuple is written to the export stream.