SYNOPSIS

  use File::Backup("backup");
  backup(
     from          => "/dir/to/back/up",
     to            => "/destination/of/backup/files",
     torootname    => root name of backup file (default is ""),
     keep          => number of backups to keep in todir (default is 7),
     tar           => path to archiving utility (default is "/usr/bin/tar"),
     compress => path to compressing utility (default is "/usr/bin/gzip"),
     tarflags      => flags to pass to 'tar' (default is "-cf"),
     compressflags => flags to pass to 'cmpr' (default is ""),
     tarsuffix     => suffix to put on the tarfile (default is '.tar'),
  );

DESCRIPTION

This module implements a very simple backup scheme.  In its barest form, it
takes as input a source directory and a destination directory, and puts a
backup of the source directory in the destination directory.  You may
specify a maximum number of backups to keep in the directory (the 'keep'
parameter).  By setting the 'keep' parameter to n, you will keep the n most
recent backups.  Specify -1 to keep all backups.

The backup will include a date string (of the format YYYY-MM-DD-hh:mm::ss)
that will be used to figure out which files are the most recent.  You can
also give a string that will be used as the beginning of the backup's
filename (before the date string), which may be useful if you're keeping
backups of several different things in the same directory.

AUTHOR

Ken Williams (ken@forum.swarthmore.edu)



Revision history for Perl extension File::Backup.

0.02  Thu Dec  3 00:28:02 EST 1998
   - Changed the date string format from YYYY-MM-DD-hh:mm:ss to
     YYYY-MM-DD_hh-mm-ss, because the colons seem to cause problems with
     the GNU version of tar.

0.01  Wed Dec  2 20:48:15 1998
	- original version; created by h2xs 1.18

