Set Newname Flexibility in 11gR2

There   are  some  new  feature  added to  "set newname" command   to  make  it  more  flexible  in  11gR2 .Suppose  we  are restoring   datafiles  from  the  backup,  either on  the  same  server  or  a  different one such  as  staging.  If  the  filesystem  (or diskgroup)  names  are  identifical,  we  won’t have to change anything. But that  is  hardly  ever  the  case.  In  staging  the f ilesystems  may  be  different,  or  perhaps  we  are   restoring a   production  database  to  an  ASM   diskgroup  different  from  where  it  was  originally created.  In  that  case  we  have  to  let  RMAN  know  the  new  name of  the datafile. The  way  to  do  it  is using the SET NEWNAME command. 

Here is an example, we weill restored datafile 1,2  in ‘D’ drive which previous location was in ‘C’ drive . Here is  the rman set newname command .

RMAN> run {

                     set newname for datafile 1 to ‘D:\oradata\system_01.dbf’;
                     set newname for datafile 2 to ‘D:\oradata\sysaux_01.dbf’;
                      restore database;     
               }

Here  there  are  just  two  datafiles, but  what  if  we  have hundreds  or  even thousands ? It will not only be a herculean task to enter all that information but it will be error-prone as well. Instead of entering each datafile by name, now we can use a single set newname clause for a tablespace. Here is how we  can do it:

RMAN> run  {

                         set  newname  for  tablespace  examples  to  'D:\oradata\examples%b.dbf'; 

                        … 

                        … rest of the commands come here … 

              }

If the tablespace has more than one datafile, they will all be uniquely created. We can use this clause for the entire database as well:  
RMAN >  run 

                 {  
                     set newname for database to 'D:\oradata\%b' ; 
                 } 

The   term  %b  specifies  the  base  filename  without  the path,  e.g. ‘C:\oradata\file1.dbf  will be reconsidered  as  file1.dbf  in  %b. This  is  very useful  for  cases  where  we are moving the files to a different  directory. We  can also  use it  for creating image copies where we will create the backup in  a different  ocation  with  the same names as  the  parent  file  which  will  make  it easy  for identification.  Here are some more examples of the placeholders.

%f      ==     is the absolute file number 
%U    ==     is a system generated unique name similar to the  %U in backup formats
%I     ==     is the Database ID
%N   ==     is the tablespace name

Using these placeholders we can use just one SET NEWNAME command for the entire database – making the process not only easy but more accurate as well.                                                                                       

Enjoy        : -)