>
> The last couple days I have been getting a "swap file already exists"
> message when I attempt to open a file. When that happens, as you are
> aware, the user is given several options, which to me are extremely
> confusing. A factor I feel certain is involved is that on a couple
> occasions either vim or a vim window was closed in other than normal
> fashion. [E.g., on one occasion, while I was running the computer on
> battery power, the battery ran down while I was away from my desk.
> Normally, when that happens the computer goes into suspend mode and when I
> attach the power cord the computer starts back up in the state it was in
> when it went into suspend mode. This time, however, it shut down. After
> restarting the computer I got the "swap file already exists" message when
> I restarted vim and attempted to load a file.]
>
>
> When I get the message I am never certain what to do. Usually I know that
> the file had been saved after the last edit. Even in that case i'm not
> sure what to do to open the most recently saved copy of the file. When I'm
> uncertain, I don't know which option will give me the most recent copy of
> the file. Or if I make the wrong choice, how I might recover---if that is
> possible at all.
>
>
> I imagine experienced programmer-users of vim would not have this problem.
> I am neither. I am a non-programming relative novice vim user. Help
> regarding my options and best choices in this situation would be greatly
> appreciated.
>
>
If you look closely at the "swap file exists" message, you should see a line
that says "modified: no" or "modified: yes". This line tells you at a glance
when the swap file corresponds to a file which has no changes since the last
save. If you see "modified: no" and you are not editing the file in another
Vim, then you can always safely choose to delete the swap file (choice: d).
If you see "modified: yes" and you are not editing the file in another Vim,
then the safest option is always to recover (choice: r) and then diff the
file with the contents on-disk to see what has changed.
If you don't see the "modified" line or you are editing the file in another
Vim, you'll need to think a little harder about things. Obviously if you're
already editing the file in another Vim, the safest option is either to open
the file read-only or quit. If not, did you already recover the file? If so,
you should be able to delete the swap file. I always quit Vim after I
recover, then re-load to edit the file again and delete the old swap file.
See :help E235, which is the error code shown at the top of the "swap
exists" message.
--
You received this message from the "vim_use" maillist.
Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to.
For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php
No comments:
Post a Comment