Re: Ontape and named pipes

Spencer, Bill wrote: > > Hi there, > I am trying to utilise named pipes with the ontape utility to provide > fast disk backup and restore with compression/uncompression 'on the fly'. > > The backup script works fine, however i am wondering how > to implement the restore part . > The ontape utility works fine when reading a disk file > but what do you do when reading from a named pipe. > > Any suggestions would be helpful, even if it is to say > it can;t be done. > > Bill Spencer. I have experimented with this also, to save disk space when archiving. In order to restore the archive from a compressed file through a named pipe to into ontape, I did the following: (uncompress -cf arcfile > pipefile;uncompress -cf arcfile > pipefile) & ontape -r <<h & y n n n h This is a rather crude way of restoring, but it worked for me, BUT ONLY FOR LEVEL 0 restores. I never managed to get Level 1 or 2 restores working in an automated manner. The y n n n are replies to the questions: Continue ? Backup logical logs ? Restore Level 1 ? Restore Logs ? Obviously change these if you have different requirements. The double uncompress is required because (I think) ontape "rewinds" the tape and reads the archive information first to display to you followed by the message "Continue ?". It then closes the file which breaks the named pipe. The second uncompress then satisfies your reply "Y". This all worked for V7.12, but if you have any queries you can e-mail me direct (wardr@gusco.com). Good luck. -- Rick Ward Senior DBA Great Universal Stores Home Shopping MANCHESTER, UK