I doubt you are running 11g, but I thought I'd throw this in ... 11g RMAN offers substitution variables like SQL*Plus does.... So you can do something like this: backup as compressed backupset database tag '&1' plus archivelog delete input; exit; And start rman like this: rman @backup.cmd using 'GOLD_COPY' I have not tested the format clause with a substitution (and I'm not around an 11g database just now) but I think it should work. So you can do something like this... backup as compressed backupset database format '&1' plus archivelog delete input; exit; and call it... rman @backup.cmd using '/u01/rman/mydb_%U' or something like that... (again, untested so the syntax may not be perfect and the substitution variable may not work in the format clause). RF Robert G. Freeman Author: Oracle Database 11g New Features (Oracle Press) Portable DBA: Oracle (Oracle Press) Oracle Database 10g New Features (Oracle Press) Oracle9i RMAN Backup and Recovery (Oracle Press) Oracle9i New Feature Blog: http://robertgfreeman.blogspot.com (Oracle Press) ----- Original Message ---- From: Jared Still <jkstill@xxxxxxxxx> To: sbootsma@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx Cc: oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Monday, February 25, 2008 11:50:43 AM Subject: Re: Can I pass a parameter into an RMAN Script? On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 9:45 AM, Sam Bootsma <sbootsma@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: format '/san2/orabackup/AAA/CTRL_%d_%T_%p_%s%t'; The same lines for our BBB database looks like: format '/san2/orabackup/BBB/CTRL_%d_%T_%p_%s%t'; Try using 'here' documents: ------- MY_FORMAT='BBB' $ORACLE_HOME/bin/rman checksyntax << EOF run { allocate channel ch1 type disk; backup database format '/backup/oracle/$MY_FORMAT/DBF_%d_%T_%p_%s%t'; } EOF ----------- -- Jared Still Certifiable Oracle DBA and Part Time Perl Evangelist