The Period data type is supported by Teradata Multiload as of TTU 13.0. A period represents an interval of time. It indicates when some particular event starts and when it ends. It has a beginning bound and an (optional) ending bound (the period is open if there is no ending bound). The beginning bound is defined by the value of a beginning element. The ending bound is defined by the value of an ending element. Those two elements of a period must be of the same type that is one of the three DateTime data types: DATE, TIME, or TIMESTAMP.

A Byte Order Mark (BOM) is the Unicode character used to denote the endianness of a text file or stream. This article will explore how the different Teradata Standalone Utilities (FastLoad, MultiLoad, TPump, FastExport) handle this within both their Job Scripts and their Data files.