After the tar has finished you can consult the exit code (=errorlevel). As always in Unix, "0" means no error, any other code means various sorts of error conditions. Check the man page for further information.

The answer to these questions is one: you can use

Code:

tar -t

to "test" a tarfile. With the "-v" option it will display a listing rather similar to a directory listing. Use this and a "ls -lR" as a reference to check if all files are included (if you haven't access to the error output tar produces in case of errors and/or the above mentioned exit code) and pipe the output in "wc -l" to count files.

Regarding Oracle recommending "tar": any command which backs up many files into one archive is fair game. Don't cling too much to what DB-manufacturers tell you. If their OS knowledge would be so hot stuff they wouldn't do database programming, after all, would they? ;-))

Seriously: MichaelFelt has it absolutely correct: "backup" is a full-blown replacement for whatever you ever used "tar" for. I use "tar" myself, mostly out of habit, but have to acknowledge that "backup" has no drawbacks at all (and possibly some advantages).

I hope this helps.

bakunin