Expert: Concise Systems/Laird Scranton - 10/11/2002

Question
When I am doing a SAVLIB command on the AS400 for my daily backup, I realise there is a prompt for EXPDATE. THe default for this prompt is *PERM. I guess I do not quite understand this parameter.

For example, if I rotate my backup tapes every month, and when I do SAVLIB I leave the EXPDATE parameter to the default *PERM. WHen the full cyle is finish and I am reusing the tape, does that mean that I would not be able to override the old data, which is what I want my backup operation to do?

Could you please explain the detail of this parameter?

Thank you in advance

Senjaya TIrtaputra


Answer
The expiration date parameter tells the AS/400 how long to consider the backup to be an "active" file.  If you save a library as *PERM, it will always be considered "active".  The next time you do a save to the same tape, if your command says to check for active files, you would receive a message indicating that active files exist on the tape.  Most likely, your backup routine either re-initializes the tape, or says not to check for active files.  The best way to prove this is to do a DSPTAP OPTION(*PRINT) on the tape after the backup is complete, and check the dates next to each library.  If the date is current, then the backup completed properly.  If the date is an old date, then your backup has not been completing properly.