珍惜生命，远离技术

rm , trash-cli , vim backup files, and others

the trouble from rm

it takes a long time to download the core file from 2013-0404-0651. but annoyingly it comes with a .dmp2 , so I quickly changed the name like this:

ping@640g-laptop:/mnt/public_html/casedata/2013-0404-0651$ ls -l
total 88980
-rwxr--r-- 1 ping 935 90930520 Apr  4 14:45 LM-10_21_04_04_2013_17_03.dmp2
ping@640g-laptop:/mnt/public_html/casedata/2013-0404-0651$
ping@640g-laptop:/mnt/public_html/casedata/2013-0404-0651$
ping@640g-laptop:/mnt/public_html/casedata/2013-0404-0651$ rm LM-10_21_04_04_2013_17_03.dmp2 LM-10_21_04_04_2013_17_03.dmp
rm: cannot remove `LM-10_21_04_04_2013_17_03.dmp': No such file or directory
ping@640g-laptop:/mnt/public_html/casedata/2013-0404-0651$ ls -l
total 0

I think I should slow down some (or go for a beer for now)…

now I hope I won’t be that quick to even blindly pressing y & then hitting return…

alias rm='rm -i'

(2013-05-16) another incident

it looks i just cautiously bypassed the fragile wall that i set up to prevent another incident…

$ ls -lct
total 2536
-rwxr-x--- 1 ping ping 214584 May 16 11:58 pair1-resize-jpg.pdf
-rwxr-x--- 1 ping ping 275735 May 16 11:46 pair1.jpg
-rwxr-x--- 1 ping ping 326791 May 15 19:38 pair1-resize.pdf
-rwxr-x--- 1 ping ping 517941 May 15 18:12 pair2.pdf
-rwxr-x--- 1 ping ping 595350 May 15 18:12 pair1.pdf
-rwxr-x--- 1 ping ping    891 May 15 18:12 temp.sh
-rwxr-x--- 1 ping ping    890 May 15 18:12 temp.sh~
-rwxr-x--- 1 ping ping 146232 May 15 15:19 pg_0005.pdf
-rwxr-x--- 1 ping ping 126196 May 15 15:19 pg_0003.pdf
-rwxr-x--- 1 ping ping 130720 May 15 15:19 pg_0002.pdf
-rwxr-x--- 1 ping ping 239406 May 15 15:19 pg_0001.pdf
test$ find ./ -newercc pg_0005.pdf -exec rm -rf {} \;
rm: cannot remove directory: `.'
$ convert pair1.pdf -geometry 612x792 -quality 100 pair1-resize.pdf
convert: unable to open image `pair1.pdf':  @ error/blob.c/OpenBlob/2587.
convert: missing an image filename `pair1-resize.pdf' @ error/convert.c/ConvertImageCommand/3011.
test$

I was testing some pdf related work here. I setup this folder for testing purpose. pg_000x.pdf files are files that I need to work on (basically I need to merge/split/rotate/combine pdf files and make a book), they were copied into this test folder first. all other files were generated based on these 4 files, except temp.sh, which is a small shell script I wrote to process all input files in a batch mode. firstly I was satisfied with my quick cleaning command here: find all files that is newer (in terms of change time here - technically not only file content, but essentially the inode ) than a specified file. then just remove all of them. but problem is that this time I somehow decided to use the -rf version of it… and among those files that I really wanted to remove, I also permanently removed the small shell script that I still need…

now I lost it. what are the options I have now?

  • recover from HD? no way

  • recover from VIM backup?

    since the deletion was time-based, even all hidden files that VIM generated to track the file content change were removed. otherwise I can recover the file via the backup files.

  • recover from VCS/dropbox ?

    I didn’t put this temporary folder file into git track, nor in dropbox (lesson learned - better create temporary folders under dropbox)

  • ignore the event, re-create the file from scratch!

I think my best option is the last one. so if I can’t recover from this tragic event, maybe I can try to secure the future more – I need to stay away from rm (especially -rf)further…

solution1

here is some quick script I got from the Internet

#!/bin/sh
# trashit
#put this in .bashrc:
# alias rm='~/bin/trashit'
#
# original script
#    http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20030217172653485
#    author: Shane Celis <shane (at) gnufoo (dot) org>
#
# Sun, 20-May-2007; 06:47:22 
#    minor changes...

if [ $# -eq 0 ]; then
        echo "usage: trashit <files...>" >&2
        exit 2;
fi

for file in "$@"; do
    # get just file name 
    destfile="`basename \"$file\"`"
    suffix='';
    i=0;

    # If that file already exists, change the name
    while [ -e "$HOME/.local/share/Trash/${destfile}${suffix}" ]; do
            suffix="-$i";
            i=`expr $i + 1`
    done
    mv -vi "$file" "$HOME/.local/share/Trash/${destfile}${suffix}"
done

it works. but the problem is , if my filename contains spaces it still has an issue.

solution2

then I found the trash-cli project , which was commented as a “much better tool” in this case. even better I found my laptop already have it installed.

ping@640g-laptop:~/temp-transfer$ touch a.txt
ping@640g-laptop:~/temp-transfer$ trash-put a.txt
ping@640g-laptop:~/temp-transfer$ touch a.txt
ping@640g-laptop:~/temp-transfer$ trash-put a.txt
ping@640g-laptop:~/temp-transfer$ touch a.txt
ping@640g-laptop:~/temp-transfer$ trash-put a.txt

~/.local/share/Trash/files$ ls -lct | head
total 211964
-rw-rw-r-- 1 ping ping        0 May 16 12:40 a.txt_2
-rw-rw-r-- 1 ping ping        0 May 16 12:39 a.txt_1
-rw-rw-r-- 1 ping ping     7589 May 16 12:39 a.txt

way to go! will use trash-cli for a while ( rm -rf as the last resort still) and see…

solution3

I always believe that VIM is a (at least “half-baked” if not perfect) VCS by itself. that said, so if I set vim backup files in a different folder, then even afer I removed the source file in a folder, its backup files should still be maintained intact , right? so here is the magic workaround from another angel:

set dir       = ./.vim-swap//
set backupdir = ./.vim-backup//
set undodir   = ./.vim-undo//

more talk about the issue in this book

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Published

04 April 2013

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