Folder or File Names That Are Specified as Wildcard Characters in [A-Z] Format Are Not Backed Up

If the subclient content consists of files or folders that are specified within square brackets, then the files are not backed up.

Symptoms

When you specify square brackets as a literal character in the subclient content, the files or folders are not identified during the file scan phase and the files are not backed up.

Causes

The files or folder names within square brackets are not specified using the correct syntax.

Resolution

Square Brackets Used as Wildcard Characters

Numbers within square brackets are treated as single digits, and a dash between two digits indicates the complete range of numbers between those two digits.

For example:

• test[1-5].txt: Backs up all files test1.txt, test2.txt, test3.txt, test4.txt, and test5.txt
• test1[0-9][0-9][0-9].txt: Backs up all files starting from test1000.txt to test1999.txt

To back up files test 10 to test 39, enter test[1-3][0-9]. If you entered [10-39], the system will back up test1, test0, test3, and test9.

Square Brackets Used as Literal Characters

If you want to treat [] as literal characters and not as wildcards, then you must use the special syntax. The special syntax is useful when you want to include a file that has brackets ( [] ) in the file name. The special syntax allows you to define an escape character. Each character that immediately follows the escape character is treated literally and not as a wildcard character.

For example, if you want to back up a file with the name report[finance].doc on the C: drive. To avoid treating the square brackets as wildcard characters, you must define the escape character. In the following example, the "e=" syntax is used to define the escape character as the apostrophe (‘). The square brackets must be treated as literals and must be preceded by apostrophes. The content entry in the subclient should look like this:

C:\report'[finance'].doc

Any character can be used as the escape character, as long as it is defined after the “e=” in the syntax and it precedes any character that is to be treated as a literal.

Escape Characters Used as a Literal Character

You can use the escape character itself as a literal. To do this, you must prefix it with another escape character.

For example:

• To back up a file with the name Test[Report]’2011’Financials.doc on the C: drive, use the following syntax: C:\Test’[Report’]’’2011’’Financials.doc
• To back up a directory folder[x] on the C: drive, use the following syntax: C:\share\folder~[x~]\***
• To back up the directories folder[3], folder[4], and folder[5] on the C: drive, use the following syntax: C:\DATA\folder~[[3-5]~]\***
• To exclude directories folder[3], folder[4], and folder[5] on the C: drive, use the following syntax: C:\DATA\folder~[[!3-5]~]\***