Timestamp on Backup_INP

jespersimonsen

Dear TOPAS user community,

I would to somewhat automate the backup of my input files. I have been trying to modify the macro Backup_INP to have a timestamp in the filename when backed up, however I have been unsuccessful.

macro Backup_INP_Timestamp {
system_before_save_OUT {
copy INP_File##.inp INP_File##.backup
}
}
Backup_INP_Timestamp

Can anyone help me to figure out what I would need to add to the macro so that the file name becomes something like: INP_File_YYYYMMDD_HHMM.backup?

Also, it is possible to specify in the macro that the backups should be saved to a folder called "backups"?

Thanks in advance.
Kind regards,
Jesper

johnsoevans

There's not a built in way of doing this, but there could be in 6 months time!
This is something I worried about when I switched from gsas many years ago, as I was used to having multiple backup points. In practice I've never found it a problem. It's useful to have one automatic backup just in case a file gets corrupted. Beyond that I just increment a serial number fit_01.inp, fit_02.inp when a model evolves significantly.