Hi, I use a script like the example below to generate a list of the WAL files that have to be saved by the backup job. I take the the names of the first and last WAL files from the backup HISTORYFILE generated by pg_start_backup() and pg_stop_backup(). The names of the WAL files between the first and the last I calculate the following way: HISTORYFILE=`find ${ARCHIVEPATH} -name "*.backup" -exec grep -l "backup-${DATABASE}-${NOW}" {} \;` FIRSTWALFILE=`grep "START WAL LOCATION" ${HISTORYFILE} | awk '{print $6} ' | sed -e 's/)$//g'` LASTWALFILE=`grep "STOP WAL LOCATION" ${HISTORYFILE} | awk '{print $6} ' | sed -e 's/)$//g'` echo FIRSTWALFILE=$FIRSTWALFILE echo LASTWALFILE=$LASTWALFILE FILE_PREFIX=`echo $FIRSTWALFILE | cut -c 1-15` FIRST_SUFFIX=`echo $FIRSTWALFILE | cut -c 16-` LAST_SUFFIX=`echo $LASTWALFILE | cut -c 16-` CNTA=`echo "obase=10;ibase=16; $FIRST_SUFFIX" | bc` CNTE=`echo "obase=10;ibase=16; $LAST_SUFFIX" | bc` echo $CNTA $CNTE while [ $CNTA -le $CNTE ];do echo ${FILE_PREFIX}${FIRST_SUFFIX} # >> outfile FIRST_SUFFIX=`echo "obase=16;ibase=16; ${FIRST_SUFFIX} + 1" | bc` CNTA=$(($CNTA+1)) done The WAL files have names like this: 00000001000000010000003C I am wonder what the meaning of the two 1 in the filename is? Are the WAL file names counted up to FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF ? Then I'll run into problems anyways as these int number are too large to be handled by bash. any insight is highly appreciated. kind regards Sebastian ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 6: explain analyze is your friend