Satheesh > i wanted to take the compressed export using expdp. Which we do similar for > export Similar doesn't mean same... >Like, > mknod exp_pipe p > gzip < exp_pipe > stgdb1.exp.gz & > expdp username/pwd DUMPFILE=exp_pipe DIRECTORY=tmpdmp full=y > logfile=entire.log You have two problems here: 1) Data Pump doesn't write data sequentially in the dump file. Therefore pipes, tapes, ... are not supported. 2) Data Pump doesn't overwrite an existing dump file. HTH Chris -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l