Re: archive_commnad parameter question

On Mon, 2021-04-19 at 21:09 +0000, Allie Crawford wrote:
> Hello,
> I am new in PostgreSQL and I am trying to understand what the “test” word is
> representing in the archive_command configuration that the PostgreSQL
> documentation is showing as the format on how to set up this parameter
>  
> archive_command = 'test ! -f /mnt/server/archivedir/%f && cp %p
> /mnt/server/archivedir/%f'  # Unix
>  
> Does anybody know what is “test” representing in this parameter
> configuration?

'test' in this case is an actual executable present on many Unix and Unix-like
systems.

In this case it effectively gates the copy (cp) command so that it only runs
if the target file does not already exist.