Hi Dilip
As Bret pointed out "native" BCP uses SAP/Sybase binary format. It is invoked with "-n" option on the bcp command line. It's output is not in an editable text format as you may get when you use "-c" option of bcp command.
Native format is typically useful when
- you have same source and target OS platforms
(i.e. cross platform data portability is not required)
- you do not need to check/edit the bcp output file generated out of source
Benefits are
- takes less space compared to character mode output
- slightly faster that character mode bcp
Really useful for porting data from system tables like syslogins
E.g. during upgrades you want to take logins from source instance to the target(s) while retaining passwords.
HTH
Avinash
