Operation Manual

4.3.1 The [DATE] variable

If you specify the [DATE] variable in the archive name, the file name of each backup will include that

backup’s creation date.

When using this variable, the first backup of a new day will be a full backup. Before creating the next

full backup, the software deletes all backups taken earlier that day. Backups taken before that day

are kept. This means you can store multiple full backups with or without incremental ones, but no

more than one full backup per day. You can sort the backups by date. You can also use a script to

copy, move, or delete the older backups.

The value of this variable is the current date surrounded by brackets ([]). The date format depends on

the regional options on the machine. For example, if the date format is year-month-day, the value for

January 31, 2012, is [2012-01-31]. Characters that are not supported in a file name, such as slashes

(/), are replaced with underscores (_).

You can place this variable anywhere in the archive name. You can use both lowercase and

uppercase letters in this variable.

Examples

Example 1. Suppose that you perform incremental backups twice a day (at midnight and noon) for

two days, starting on January 31, 2012. The archive name is MyArchive-[DATE], the date format is

year-month-day. Here is the list of backup files after day two:

MyArchive-[2012-01-31].tib (full, created on January 31 at midnight)

MyArchive-[2012-01-31]2.tib (incremental, created on January 31 at noon)

MyArchive-[2012-02-01].tib (full, created on February 1 at midnight)

MyArchive-[2012-02-01]2.tib (incremental, created on February 1 at noon)

Example 2. Suppose that you perform full backups, with the same schedule, archive name, and date

format as in the previous example. Then, the list of backup files after day two is the following:

MyArchive-[2012-01-31].tib (full, created on January 31 at noon)

MyArchive-[2012-02-01].tib (full, created on February 1 at noon)

This is because the full backups created at midnight were replaced by new full backups of the same

day.

4.3.2 Backup splitting and simplified file naming

When a backup is split according to backup splitting (p. 111) settings, the same indexing is used to

also name parts of the backup. The file name for the next backup will have the next available index.

For example, suppose that the first backup of the archive MyData has been split in two parts. Then,

the file names for this backup are MyData1.tib and MyData2.tib. The second backup (supposing that

it is not split) will be named MyData3.tib.

4.3.3 Usage examples

This section provides examples of how you can use simplified file naming.

4.3.3.1 Example 1. Daily backup replacing the old one

Consider the following scenario: