Re: vim: recover an unnamed file

and, I just found that I had the swap file disabled :(




On May 16, 2013, at 10:41 PM, ping <songpingemail@gmail.com> wrote:

> 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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