Shell Programming and Scripting

You can "hide" a file or directory in unix. Just add a "." at the begining of the file's name and users won't see it unless they do "ls -a"

Code:

$ touch one two .three
$ ls
one two
$ ls -A
one two .three
$

But, if you don't want other users to list your files in some_dir, just "chmod o-x /some_dir"

Though, as it's been said before, if you do not want anybody be able to read your files, you should use ecryption...

Corona688, I think tbdo88 is using VIM in Linux, which has that option
I my Linux box, VIM v7.0.17 has it.

Regards.

thank you very much.

All version of vi. I have been using this feature for more than 15 years. Check your man page first on vi:

-x Encryption option. When used, vi simulates the X com-
mand of ex and prompts the user for a key. This key is
used to encrypt and decrypt text using the algorithm
of the crypt command. The X command makes an educated
guess to determine whether text read in is encrypted
or not. The temporary buffer file is encrypted also,
using a transformed version of the key typed in for
the -x option. If an empty encryption key is entered
(that is, if the return key is pressed right after the
prompt), the file will not be encrypted. This is a
good way to decrypt a file erroneously encrypted with
a mistyped encryption key, such as a backspace or undo
key.

Ok, It's fantastic the fact that your vi has had that option for at least 15 years. I swear I work with several AIX machines, less than 4 years old, and neither vi nor vi's man page says anything about "-x". Be sure that I always check man pages before posting, and I suppose that Corona688 does the same. NOT all versions of vi have "-x".

Regards.

Be carefull when you use "." to hide the file. "." has feature called self-autoexecution. It will automatically execute when you login. - Just FYI.

I've never actually seen this option myself, but it seems quite useful.

Just out of interest, when using it to create a script, how do you convert it to non-encrypted form for execution?

Thanks

What?
I think you are a little bit confused...
Perhaps you are talking about shell initialization files such as ".profile", ".bashrc", ".cshrc", etc...
The fact that a filename starts by "." has nothing to do with self-auto-execution...