Re: vim: recover an unnamed file

On 5/16/2013 8:48 PM, Gary Johnson wrote:
> On 2013-05-16, ping wrote:
>> guys:
>> My PC (ubuntu) just restarted by itself due to the (stupid) overheat
>> issue, again (I couldn't find a solution on that in a year..)
>>
>> but regardless, I had a file that I had been editing for quite a while.
>> all of a sudden the PC reloaded, now I'm wondering how can I recover
>> that file.
>>
>> I tried both of the following method , but none of them give me the
>> right file.
>>
>> one thing I've notice that if I'm in different folder, vim -r give me
>> different files. I tried to change to different folder and invoke vim
>> -r, but still failed to find the right one (per the timestamp) for
>> me...
>>
>> any other good ideals?
>>
>> maybe the last resort, do I have to grep from the whole harddisk for this?
>>
>> and, what's the best practice to solve this issue in the future
>> (lesson learned for me: always use a named buffer ) ?
>>
>>
>> 1) :recover
>>
>> Swap files found:
>> Using specified name:
>> 1. .swa
>> owned by: ping dated: Fri Jan 21 17:26:35 2011
>> file name: [No Name]
>> modified: YES
>> user name: ping host name: 640g-laptop
>> process ID: 14418
>> 2. .swb
>> owned by: ping dated: Wed Dec 29 14:32:22 2010
>> file name: [No Name]
>> modified: no
>> user name: ping host name: 640g-laptop
>> process ID: 7874
>> 3. .swc
>> owned by: ping dated: Fri Dec 17 17:05:02 2010
>> file name: [No Name]
>> modified: YES
>> user name: ping host name: 640g-laptop
>> process ID: 2735
>> 4. .swd
>> owned by: ping dated: Mon Dec 6 17:57:06 2010
>> file name: [No Name]
>> modified: YES
>> user name: ping host name: 640g-laptop
>> process ID: 22947
>> 5. .swe
>> owned by: ping dated: Fri Oct 29 08:15:23 2010
>> file name: [No Name]
>> modified: YES
>> user name: ping host name: 640g-laptop
>> process ID: 20799
>> 6. .swf
>> owned by: ping dated: Thu Dec 2 13:05:32 2010
>> file name: [No Name]
>> modified: YES
>> user name: ping host name: 640g-laptop
>> process ID: 5370
>> 7. .swg
>> owned by: ping dated: Sat Oct 23 11:38:18 2010
>> file name: [No Name]
>> modified: YES
>> user name: ping host name: 640g-laptop
>> process ID: 4930
>> 8. .swh
>> owned by: ping dated: Sat Oct 23 06:40:55 2010
>> file name: [No Name]
>> modified: YES
>> user name: ping host name: 640g-laptop
>> process ID: 3119
>> 9. .swi
>> owned by: ping dated: Sat Oct 16 23:28:22 2010
>> file name: [No Name]
>> modified: YES
>> user name: ping host name: 640g-laptop
>> process ID: 13572
>> 10. .swj
>> owned by: ping dated: Sat Oct 23 06:35:33 2010
>> file name: [No Name]
>> modified: YES
>> user name: ping host name: 640g-laptop
>> process ID: 4930
>> 11. .swk
>> owned by: ping dated: Tue Oct 12 10:15:05 2010
>> file name: [No Name]
>> modified: YES
>> user name: ping host name: 640g-laptop
>> process ID: 13672
>> 12. .swl
>> owned by: ping dated: Sun Oct 10 06:44:29 2010
>> file name: [No Name]
>> modified: YES
>> user name: ping host name: 640g-laptop
>> process ID: 26777
>> 13. .swm
>> owned by: ping dated: Wed Oct 6 00:44:37 2010
>> file name: [No Name]
>> modified: YES
>> user name: ping host name: 640g-laptop
>> process ID: 29373
>> 14. .swn
>> owned by: ping dated: Tue Oct 5 03:59:02 2010
>> file name: [No Name]
>> modified: YES
>> user name: ping host name: 640g-laptop
>> process ID: 29373
>> 15. .swo
>> owned by: ping dated: Sun Sep 26 09:34:44 2010
>> file name: [No Name]
>> modified: YES
>> user name: ping host name: 640g-laptop
>> process ID: 3824
>> 16. .swp
>> owned by: ping dated: Fri Apr 20 15:59:12 2012
>> file name: [No Name]
>> modified: YES
>> user name: ping host name: 640g-laptop
>> process ID: 17594
>> In directory ~/tmp:
>> -- none --
>> In directory /var/tmp:
>> -- none --
>> In directory /tmp:
>> -- none --
>>
>> Enter number of swap file to use (0 to quit): 0
> After a quick look at Vim's memline.c, I think you are the victim of
> poor housekeeping and a bug in Vim. You may still be able to
> recover your files though.
>
> Note that your oldest swap file is named ".swp", the next oldest is
> named ".swo", and that pattern of decreasing last letters continues
> through your newest swap file which is named ".swa". Note, too,
> that your newest swap file is pretty old, from January 2011. I
> doubt that that is the last time you used an unnamed buffer.
>
> When Vim creates a swap file, it first tries the suffix ".swp". If
> that file exists, Vim decrements the last letter and tries again.
> When the suffix becomes ".swa" and that file exists, Vim then
> decrements the second-to-last letter, sets the last letter to "z",
> and tries again. It continues to look for swap file names that
> don't exists until it reaches the suffix ".saa", then gives up.
>
> Now, when Vim looks for swap files, it looks for files with suffixes
> matching the pattern ".sw?". This will find only the first 16 swap
> files. It ignores any swap files created with a second letter other
> than "w".
>
> That is a bug and needs to be fixed. Vim should either look for
> swap files whose suffixes match the pattern ".s??" or stop creating
> swap files with suffixes whose second letter is other than "w".
>
> To your problem: It is quite likely that the same directories that
> contain files named ".swa" also contain files named ".svz", ".svy",
> and so on. Those are valid Vim swap files, but Vim doesn't
> recognize them as such by those names.
>
> I would suggest first verifying that you do not care about the files
> matching the pattern ".sw?", then delete them. Then find the newest
> file with a name matching the pattern ".s??", rename it to ".swp",
> and try recovering it.
>
> Once you've recovered all your files, I would suggest that you close
> all instances of Vim and do a sweep of your file system using find
> (not grep) to find all your swap files. Again be sure that you do
> not need them, then delete them all. In the future, pay attention
> to swap files left over after crashes and keep them cleaned up.
>
> Regards,
> Gary
>
thanks Gary, I think I only undertsand some part of your explanations.
can you detail the steps for me to recover my file?


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