addendum:
to be even more gratefull with TSM developers (and thankfull to):
I forgot to mention "snapshotroot"
which is also a way to give a common name to a 
group of backups.
Juraj



-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Richard Sims [mailto:rbs AT BU DOT EDU]
Gesendet: Freitag, 27. Februar 2004 14:08
An: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Betreff: Re: Strange RETRIEVE behaviour


>Is there no way to avoid specifying the entire source path?
>
>The reason I want to do this is that I have to be able to retrieve files
>(from several years ago) with an automated procedure, and I don't want to
>get into the hasle by finding out the source path by issueing one or more
>query commands from the client side.

Well, objects have to have some "name" in order to be identified for
selection, and this is fulfilled by the file system path spec for the
file.  This is just basic "addressing".  I gather that you have files
archived from various places in the file system: if so, then you obviously
have no recourse but to specify the path as part of the Retrieve...to
address the object you want back.  If all archived files are from the same
directory, then you can 'cd' into that directory and then retrieve by file
name, where the path is implicit in your current directory.  But either
way you are dealing with the realities of file system locationing.
I think what you're looking for is a whole new paradigm in the addressing
of file objects; but that is incongruous with the accommodations of file
system applications such as TSM.

  Richard Sims,  http://people.bu.edu/rbs