RMAN - catalog of newly registered database stores info from all incarnations?!

When you register a new target to the catalog, and then issue a "list incarnations", RMAN lists all the previous incarnations as well. But why? What's the point?

Why does the catalog of a "newly" registered target database store information about ALL the previous incarnations (of the target) as well? What is the logic behind this? It is not as if any of the previous incarnations were backed up..it is not necessarily true anyway. I think the information is useless and kinda misleading. It misleads a novice DBA "at first sight" into thinking s/he might have backup information for multiple incarnations in the catalog.

Thoughts anyone?

How about if you want to recover to a point in time before the last incarnation?

Quote:

---

Originally posted by julian
How about if you want to recover to a point in time before the last incarnation?

---

Huh, what about it? I don't understand.

select resetlogs_time,prior_resetlogs_time from v$database;
shows you the last couple of incarnations..

But if you're looking for something even older, restore your appropriate backup, that's all (it could very well have been just a traditional hotbackup). How does listing multiple incarnations benefit you for this?

Removed