SAP Note 16650 - R3trans: re-import of "BACKUP" data

Symptom:

When you try to read a datafile that was generated with R3trans function "backup" (e.g. for a re-import), the following message(s) may be issued:
Re-Import) kommt eine Meldung der Art:
2EETW000 Unexpected record length 8093 at file position 0.
2EETW000 This file seems not to contain transport data (or it was ...
2EETW000 incompatible versions of transport programs ...
1AETW000 ===> PANIC: This program has version x.xx, the file is not ...
The R3trans datafile ends with ".Z" .

Cause and prerequisites

With the "backup" function, R3trans compresses the generated datafile with the UNIX "compress" command (or a command of the appropriate compression algorithm). This activity is not documented, however.

Solution
You must first use the UNIX "uncompress" command ("uncompress xxx.dat.Z") to decompress the dataset. The resulting file will then have its original name ("xxx.dat") and can be used for R3trans actions normally. Of course, when you are finished you should compress the dataset again ("compress xxx.dat"), to at least document the "compressed" status for users with UNIX experience.