meaning in context - What does "should something happen" mean?


What is the meaning of should loss occur in the following text?



Backup and recovery procedures protect your database against data loss and reconstruct the data, should loss occur. The reconstructing of data is achieved through media recovery, which refers to the various operations involved in restoring, rolling forward, and rolling back a backup of database files. This chapter introduces concepts fundamental to designing a backup and recovery strategy.




Answer



Should something happen is equivalent to if the thing in question happens.


Therefore the sentence from your paragraph could be rewritten as:



Backup and recovery procedures protect your database against data loss and reconstruct the data, if loss occurs.



A simpler example to help you understand this easier:



Should I arrive late tomorrow, we will not watch the movie together.



Is the same as:



If I arrive late tomorrow, we will not watch the movie together.



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