private void copyOneDataPath(Path fromPath, Path toPath) throws IOException, LoginException {
    FileStatus[] fileStatuses = LoadSemanticAnalyzer.matchFilesOrDir(dataFileSystem, fromPath);
    List<Path> srcPaths = new ArrayList<>();
    for (FileStatus fileStatus : fileStatuses) {
      srcPaths.add(fileStatus.getPath());
    }

    new CopyUtils(distCpDoAsUser, hiveConf, toPath.getFileSystem(hiveConf)).doCopy(toPath, srcPaths);
  }
This writes the actual data in the exportRootDataDir from the source.
ql/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hive/ql/parse/repl/dump/io/FileOperations.java