Integrated Taxonomic Information System - Database Download Instructions

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A version of the full ITIS database is available for downloading via HTTP.

We create database dump files once a month as new data are added to ITIS. The updated files are posted near the end of each month at:
http://www.itis.gov/downloads.

Note: You must have your own database server installed and running to use these files.

The basic steps to access and use the files are:

1. Select the appropriate file for your database (Informix, MySql, or MS SQL Server).
2. Download and extract the file on the system you will use to load the database.
3. Use the instructions contained in the download's readme file to create and load the database on your system.
4. You should now be able to access the data via your local database system.

Notes:

• All data in the archive files are in the ISO Latin 1 (ISO 8859-1) character set.
• Diacritical Characters: All diacritical characters in ITIS have been modified to reflect their ISO Latin 1 (ISO 8859-1) representation.
• Archive commands are used to create a compressed tar or zip file containing all files associated with the database
• In the commands below mmddyy is the month, day and year the file was created.
• Informix files are created with the Linux tar command:
  "tar cfz itisInformix.tar.gz itis.mmddyy"
• MS SQL Server files are created with the zip command:
  "zip itisMSSql.zip itisMS.mmddyy"
• The MySql bulk load SQL script (ITIS.sql) was created with the mysqldump command. The zip file was then created with the zip command
  "zip itisMySQLBulk.zip itisMySQLmmddyy"
• The MySql load by tables file was created with a Linux tar command
  "tar cfz itisMySQLTables.tar.gz itisMySQLmmddyy"
• The end-of-line character in the Informix and MySql files is the new line (LF or \n) character.
• The end-of-line character in the MS Sql Server zip file contains the carriage return and newline (CR LF or \r\n) characters.