Mercurial > vim
annotate runtime/doc/recover.txt @ 23696:c0a8837e86cb
Added tag v8.2.2389 for changeset e3d77689d356b03d437183a20399690ca7a6a64c
| author | Bram Moolenaar <Bram@vim.org> |
|---|---|
| date | Thu, 21 Jan 2021 23:00:05 +0100 |
| parents | 0db0640e16e0 |
| children | f8116058ca76 |
| rev | line source |
|---|---|
| 21825 | 1 *recover.txt* For Vim version 8.2. Last change: 2020 Aug 15 |
| 7 | 2 |
| 3 | |
| 4 VIM REFERENCE MANUAL by Bram Moolenaar | |
| 5 | |
| 6 | |
| 7 Recovery after a crash *crash-recovery* | |
| 8 | |
| 9 You have spent several hours typing in that text that has to be finished | |
| 10 next morning, and then disaster strikes: Your computer crashes. | |
| 11 | |
| 12 DON'T PANIC! | |
| 13 | |
| 14 You can recover most of your changes from the files that Vim uses to store | |
| 15 the contents of the file. Mostly you can recover your work with one command: | |
| 16 vim -r filename | |
| 17 | |
| 18 1. The swap file |swap-file| | |
| 19 2. Recovery |recovery| | |
| 20 | |
| 21 ============================================================================== | |
| 22 1. The swap file *swap-file* | |
| 23 | |
| 24 Vim stores the things you changed in a swap file. Using the original file | |
| 25 you started from plus the swap file you can mostly recover your work. | |
| 26 | |
| 27 You can see the name of the current swap file being used with the command: | |
| 28 | |
| 29 :sw[apname] *:sw* *:swapname* | |
| 30 | |
| 14864 | 31 Or you can use the |swapname()| function, which also allows for seeing the |
| 32 swap file name of other buffers. | |
| 33 | |
| 7 | 34 The name of the swap file is normally the same as the file you are editing, |
| 35 with the extension ".swp". | |
| 36 - On Unix, a '.' is prepended to swap file names in the same directory as the | |
| 37 edited file. This avoids that the swap file shows up in a directory | |
| 38 listing. | |
| 18972 | 39 - On MS-Windows machines and when the 'shortname' option is on, any '.' in the |
| 7 | 40 original file name is replaced with '_'. |
| 41 - If this file already exists (e.g., when you are recovering from a crash) a | |
| 42 warning is given and another extension is used, ".swo", ".swn", etc. | |
| 43 - An existing file will never be overwritten. | |
| 44 - The swap file is deleted as soon as Vim stops editing the file. | |
| 45 | |
| 46 Technical: The replacement of '.' with '_' is done to avoid problems with | |
| 47 MS-DOS compatible filesystems (e.g., crossdos, multidos). If Vim | |
| 48 is able to detect that the file is on an MS-DOS-like filesystem, a | |
| 49 flag is set that has the same effect as the 'shortname' option. | |
| 50 This flag is reset when you start editing another file. | |
| 51 *E326* | |
| 52 If the ".swp" file name already exists, the last character is | |
| 53 decremented until there is no file with that name or ".saa" is | |
| 54 reached. In the last case, no swap file is created. | |
| 55 | |
| 56 By setting the 'directory' option you can place the swap file in another place | |
| 57 than where the edited file is. | |
| 58 Advantages: | |
| 59 - You will not pollute the directories with ".swp" files. | |
| 60 - When the 'directory' is on another partition, reduce the risk of damaging | |
| 61 the file system where the file is (in a crash). | |
| 62 Disadvantages: | |
| 63 - You can get name collisions from files with the same name but in different | |
| 64 directories (although Vim tries to avoid that by comparing the path name). | |
| 65 This will result in bogus ATTENTION warning messages. | |
| 66 - When you use your home directory, and somebody else tries to edit the same | |
| 21825 | 67 file, that user will not see your swap file and will not get the ATTENTION |
| 68 warning message. | |
| 7 | 69 On the Amiga you can also use a recoverable ram disk, but there is no 100% |
| 70 guarantee that this works. Putting swap files in a normal ram disk (like RAM: | |
| 71 on the Amiga) or in a place that is cleared when rebooting (like /tmp on Unix) | |
| 72 makes no sense, you will lose the swap file in a crash. | |
| 73 | |
| 74 If you want to put swap files in a fixed place, put a command resembling the | |
| 75 following ones in your .vimrc: | |
| 76 :set dir=dh2:tmp (for Amiga) | |
| 77 :set dir=~/tmp (for Unix) | |
| 18972 | 78 :set dir=c:\\tmp (for Win32) |
| 7 | 79 This is also very handy when editing files on floppy. Of course you will have |
| 80 to create that "tmp" directory for this to work! | |
| 81 | |
| 82 For read-only files, a swap file is not used. Unless the file is big, causing | |
| 83 the amount of memory used to be higher than given with 'maxmem' or | |
| 84 'maxmemtot'. And when making a change to a read-only file, the swap file is | |
| 85 created anyway. | |
| 86 | |
| 5737 | 87 The 'swapfile' option can be reset to avoid creating a swapfile. And the |
| 88 |:noswapfile| modifier can be used to not create a swapfile for a new buffer. | |
| 89 | |
| 5814 | 90 :nos[wapfile] {command} *:nos* *:noswapfile* |
| 5737 | 91 Execute {command}. If it contains a command that loads a new |
| 92 buffer, it will be loaded without creating a swapfile and the | |
| 93 'swapfile' option will be reset. If a buffer already had a | |
| 94 swapfile it is not removed and 'swapfile' is not reset. | |
| 7 | 95 |
| 96 | |
| 97 Detecting an existing swap file ~ | |
| 98 | |
| 99 You can find this in the user manual, section |11.3|. | |
| 100 | |
| 101 | |
| 102 Updating the swapfile ~ | |
| 103 | |
| 104 The swap file is updated after typing 200 characters or when you have not | |
| 105 typed anything for four seconds. This only happens if the buffer was | |
| 106 changed, not when you only moved around. The reason why it is not kept up to | |
| 107 date all the time is that this would slow down normal work too much. You can | |
| 108 change the 200 character count with the 'updatecount' option. You can set | |
| 109 the time with the 'updatetime' option. The time is given in milliseconds. | |
| 110 After writing to the swap file Vim syncs the file to disk. This takes some | |
| 111 time, especially on busy Unix systems. If you don't want this you can set the | |
| 112 'swapsync' option to an empty string. The risk of losing work becomes bigger | |
| 18972 | 113 though. On some non-Unix systems (MS-Windows, Amiga) the swap file won't be |
| 7 | 114 written at all. |
| 115 | |
| 116 If the writing to the swap file is not wanted, it can be switched off by | |
| 117 setting the 'updatecount' option to 0. The same is done when starting Vim | |
| 118 with the "-n" option. Writing can be switched back on by setting the | |
| 119 'updatecount' option to non-zero. Swap files will be created for all buffers | |
| 120 when doing this. But when setting 'updatecount' to zero, the existing swap | |
| 121 files will not be removed, it will only affect files that will be opened | |
| 122 after this. | |
| 123 | |
| 124 If you want to make sure that your changes are in the swap file use this | |
| 125 command: | |
| 126 | |
| 127 *:pre* *:preserve* *E313* *E314* | |
| 20379 | 128 :pre[serve] Write all text for the current buffer into its swap |
| 129 file. The original file is no longer needed for | |
| 130 recovery. This sets a flag in the current buffer. | |
| 131 When the '&' flag is present in 'cpoptions' the swap | |
| 132 file will not be deleted for this buffer when Vim | |
| 133 exits and the buffer is still loaded |cpo-&|. | |
| 7 | 134 |
| 135 A Vim swap file can be recognized by the first six characters: "b0VIM ". | |
| 136 After that comes the version number, e.g., "3.0". | |
| 137 | |
| 593 | 138 |
| 139 Links and symbolic links ~ | |
| 140 | |
| 141 On Unix it is possible to have two names for the same file. This can be done | |
| 142 with hard links and with symbolic links (symlinks). | |
| 143 | |
| 144 For hard links Vim does not know the other name of the file. Therefore, the | |
| 145 name of the swapfile will be based on the name you used to edit the file. | |
| 146 There is no check for editing the same file by the other name too, because Vim | |
| 147 cannot find the other swapfile (except for searching all of your harddisk, | |
| 148 which would be very slow). | |
| 149 | |
| 150 For symbolic links Vim resolves the links to find the name of the actual file. | |
| 151 The swap file name is based on that name. Thus it doesn't matter by what name | |
| 152 you edit the file, the swap file name will normally be the same. However, | |
| 153 there are exceptions: | |
| 154 - When the directory of the actual file is not writable the swapfile is put | |
| 155 elsewhere. | |
| 156 - When the symbolic links somehow create a loop you get an *E773* error | |
| 157 message and the unmodified file name will be used. You won't be able to | |
| 158 save your file normally. | |
| 159 | |
| 7 | 160 ============================================================================== |
| 161 2. Recovery *recovery* *E308* *E311* | |
| 162 | |
| 163 Basic file recovery is explained in the user manual: |usr_11.txt|. | |
| 164 | |
| 165 Another way to do recovery is to start Vim and use the ":recover" command. | |
| 166 This is easy when you start Vim to edit a file and you get the "ATTENTION: | |
| 167 Found a swap file ..." message. In this case the single command ":recover" | |
| 168 will do the work. You can also give the name of the file or the swap file to | |
| 169 the recover command: | |
| 170 *:rec* *:recover* *E305* *E306* *E307* | |
| 171 :rec[over] [file] Try to recover [file] from the swap file. If [file] | |
| 172 is not given use the file name for the current | |
| 173 buffer. The current contents of the buffer are lost. | |
| 174 This command fails if the buffer was modified. | |
| 175 | |
| 176 :rec[over]! [file] Like ":recover", but any changes in the current | |
| 177 buffer are lost. | |
| 178 | |
| 179 *E312* *E309* *E310* | |
| 180 Vim has some intelligence about what to do if the swap file is corrupt in | |
| 181 some way. If Vim has doubt about what it found, it will give an error | |
| 182 message and insert lines with "???" in the text. If you see an error message | |
| 183 while recovering, search in the file for "???" to see what is wrong. You may | |
| 184 want to cut and paste to get the text you need. | |
| 185 | |
| 186 The most common remark is "???LINES MISSING". This means that Vim cannot read | |
| 187 the text from the original file. This can happen if the system crashed and | |
| 188 parts of the original file were not written to disk. | |
| 189 | |
| 190 Be sure that the recovery was successful before overwriting the original | |
| 191 file or deleting the swap file. It is good practice to write the recovered | |
| 192 file elsewhere and run 'diff' to find out if the changes you want are in the | |
|
2033
de5a43c5eedc
Update documentation files.
Bram Moolenaar <bram@zimbu.org>
parents:
1702
diff
changeset
|
193 recovered file. Or use |:DiffOrig|. |
| 7 | 194 |
| 195 Once you are sure the recovery is ok delete the swap file. Otherwise, you | |
| 196 will continue to get warning messages that the ".swp" file already exists. | |
| 197 | |
| 198 | |
| 2267 | 199 |
| 200 ENCRYPTION AND THE SWAP FILE *:recover-crypt* | |
| 201 | |
| 202 When the text file is encrypted the swap file is encrypted as well. This | |
| 203 makes recovery a bit more complicated. When recovering from a swap file and | |
| 204 encryption has been used, you will be asked to enter one or two crypt keys. | |
| 205 | |
| 206 If the text file does not exist you will only be asked to enter the crypt key | |
| 207 for the swap file. | |
| 208 | |
| 209 If the text file does exist, it may be encrypted in a different way than the | |
| 210 swap file. You will be asked for the crypt key twice: | |
| 211 | |
| 212 Need encryption key for "/tmp/tt" ~ | |
| 213 Enter encryption key: ****** ~ | |
| 214 "/tmp/tt" [crypted] 23200L, 522129C ~ | |
| 215 Using swap file "/tmp/.tt.swp" ~ | |
| 216 Original file "/tmp/tt" ~ | |
| 217 Swap file is encrypted: "/tmp/.tt.swp" ~ | |
| 218 If you entered a new crypt key but did not write the text file, ~ | |
| 219 enter the new crypt key. ~ | |
| 220 If you wrote the text file after changing the crypt key press enter ~ | |
| 221 to use the same key for text file and swap file ~ | |
| 222 Enter encryption key: ~ | |
| 223 | |
| 224 You can be in one of these two situations: | |
| 225 | |
| 226 1. The encryption key was not changed, or after changing the key the text file | |
| 227 was written. You will be prompted for the crypt key twice. The second | |
| 228 time you can simply press Enter. That means the same key is used for the | |
| 229 text file and the swap file. | |
| 230 2. You entered a new encryption key, but did not save the text file. Vim will | |
| 231 then use the new key for the swap file, and the text file will still be | |
| 232 encrypted with the old key. At the second prompt enter the new key. | |
| 233 | |
| 234 Note that after recovery the key of the swap file will be used for the text | |
| 235 file. Thus if you write the text file, you need to use that new key. | |
| 236 | |
| 237 | |
| 14421 | 238 vim:tw=78:ts=8:noet:ft=help:norl: |