Sponsored Content
Top Forums UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users Why is editing a file by renaming the new one safer? Post 303042599 by zxmaus on Wednesday 1st of January 2020 01:28:03 AM
Old 01-01-2020
I am largely with Neo - depending on what file you are modifying, you might not even need a backup copy at all. For example, I often create feeding files for loops - and afterwards modify them (add or remove things) - these are my very own files and I usually can recreate them very easily if I ever have to - so these I modify without any backups. System files however should always be modified after a copy - ideally a copy where ownership and permissions are the same as the original - so if anything ever goes wrong - all you have to do is rename the original file to something like .old and your copy to the original filename.
BTW - in 32 years, I have not lost a single file to a system crash.
 

9 More Discussions You Might Find Interesting

1. UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users

Editing the end of the file without loading the entire file

hi! I am a newbee. I would really appreciate if you can answer the following question: I have a huge data file, 214MB with several coloumns. I need to delete the very last line of the file. Everything I know takes a lot of time to do it ( because I have to open the file in an editor or run a... (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: Garuda
3 Replies

2. What is on Your Mind?

Nuclear Elephant iPhone Wipe making your iPhone Safer for Resale

For those with the iPhones here might read up how to wipe your personal data off the phone before reselling or trade-in. ;) source: Nuclear Elephant: iPhone Wipe June 1, 2008: Making your iPhone Safe for Resale Since my posts regarding the iPhone restore mode being insufficient for wiping... (0 Replies)
Discussion started by: sparcguy
0 Replies

3. What is on Your Mind?

Is M$ safer than UN*X(-LIKE)??

I know that you already know the answer to the question. It just springed in my mind after what happened yesterday. I was getting some books off of Amazon.com, since they are cheeper than bookstore, and my mother said something that made me laugh 'till I couldn't breathe. I have a Debian Lenny... (12 Replies)
Discussion started by: Texasone
12 Replies

4. Solaris

metaset - renaming /editing the set name - possible ?

Hi all I need to change my current metaset setname from lh-rms02ds to lh-lgwrms01ds. Is it possible ?? I know within veritas I do a vxedit, is there a way in SVM ? I notice theres a metarename, but this is for the metadevice level. Any tips ? help ?? Or do I need to delete /... (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: sbk1972
2 Replies

5. Shell Programming and Scripting

Help with file editing while keeping file format intact

Hi, I am having a file which is fix length and comma seperated. And I want to replace values for one column. I am reading file line by line in variable $LINE and then replacing the string. Problem is after changing value and writing new file temp5.txt, formating of original file is getting... (8 Replies)
Discussion started by: Mruda
8 Replies

6. Shell Programming and Scripting

editing line in text file adding number to value in file

I have a text file that has data like: Data "12345#22" Fred ID 12345 Age 45 Wilma Dino Data "123#22" Tarzan ID 123 Age 33 Jane I need to figure out a way of adding 1,000,000 to the specific lines (always same format) in the file, so it becomes: Data "1012345#22" Fred ID... (16 Replies)
Discussion started by: say170
16 Replies

7. Shell Programming and Scripting

Need help in editing a file

I have a file which has 10 million records in it. When am trying to edit the file with vi, the following error occurs: ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ "file1" Value too large for defined data type Is there any way that I can edit this file without using vi? Any help would be really appreciated.... (8 Replies)
Discussion started by: bobby1015
8 Replies

8. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

# /UNIX.org file deleting is safer or not

Hi All, Please tell me the use of # /Unix.org file it has reserved a huge disk space, I want to know is it safer to truncate or delete. Thanks - Rukshan.:) (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: rukshan4u2c
1 Replies

9. Shell Programming and Scripting

Convert vi editing to text editing

Dear Guru's I'm using Putty and want to edit a file. I know we generally use vi editor to do it. As I'm not good in using vi editor, I want to convert the vi into something like text pad. Is there any option in Putty to do the same ? Thanks for your response. Srini (6 Replies)
Discussion started by: thummi9090
6 Replies
MAILCAP.ORDER(5)                                               Order Mailcap Entries                                              MAILCAP.ORDER(5)

NAME
/etc/mailcap.order - the mailcap ordering specifications DESCRIPTION
The order of entries in the /etc/mailcap file can be altered by editing the /etc/mailcap.order file. Each line of that file specifies a package and an optional mime type. Mailcap entries that match will be placed in the order of this file. Entries that don't match will be placed later. Example mime-support:*/* gv:application/postscript netscape:text/html less:text/* emacs:text/* The above would make any entries provided by the mime-support package (as found in the /usr/lib/mime/packages directory) take priority over everything else. The gv package will be used over anything else when it comes to postscript documents. Netscape will be used for any html documents and less will be used for any remaining text documents. However, since neither netscape or less provide for editing documents, any edit or compose actions will fall through to the emacs rules. After modifying this file, be sure to run /usr/sbin/update-mime (as root) to propagate the changes into the /etc/mailcap file. Remember that this files takes package names and not executable names. If you want to define rules that reference specific programs, the best way is to include them in ~/.mailcap or the user section of the /etc/mailcap file. LIMITATIONS
There is currently no way to break out a certain type from a wildcard rule. If, for example, both xv and gimp were to specify "image/*" rules, it isn't possible to use xv for gif images but use gimp for jpeg images. Also, I would like to add the ability to specify certain actions in the rules. For example, if netscape were to have an edit rule but I wanted to use emacs for editing/creating html documents, I could place a line like emacs:text/* action=edit|compose before the netscape entry. The update-mime program would then spit out entries such that netscape view rule comes before the emacs view rule but have the netscape edit rule comes after the emacs edit rule. SEE ALSO
mailcap(5) run-mailcap(1) update-mime(8) AUTHOR
The mailcap.order specification was written by Brian White <bcwhite@pobox.com> Debian Project 16th Aug 1998 MAILCAP.ORDER(5)
All times are GMT -4. The time now is 08:19 AM.
Unix & Linux Forums Content Copyright 1993-2022. All Rights Reserved.
Privacy Policy