Hello, i'm new to DCL and writing a program that will return the status of a completed disk after its backup. An example of a disk would be "sysbak_$1$dga100_daily_11-oct-2001" I was able to use the lexical f$time and f$extract to get the accurate date of the disk thats being backed up. Can anyone give me advice on how after now having the accurate date do I make my program search for the whole disk and its status?

Easiest way to make a backup of a complete disk is to use the /IMAGE qualifier with backup. Another way is to use [000000...] as directory specification. This means the root directory, and everything below it. But this has the disadvantage, that directories that are linked several times, will be copied more than once. Read the manual about backup : http://www.openvms.compaq.com:8000/731FINAL/6017/6017pro_045.html#6017backup After a command execution, a symbol $STATUS is set with the return code. Read more about this in the user manual : http://www.openvms.compaq.com:8000/731FINAL/6489/6489pro_036.html#handle_err_sec Btw, I would use the lexical F$CVTIME(,,"DATE") for getting the date.