[thelist] File recovery?
Luther, Ron
Ron.Luther at hp.com
Tue Jun 26 16:06:00 CDT 2007
Jon Molesa noted:
>>But I'm sure happens to everyone. I just thought with this bunch,
>>perhaps someone knew and would be interested in talking it up with me.
Hi Jon,
Yup. I think that's up on the 'everybody gets bitten eventually' list.
No undo that I am aware of.
However, that said, sometimes you *can* get lucky:
- You've changed exactly 'n' occurrence (where 'n' is a small number -
hopefully one or zero!). Sometimes you can undo small numbers of bad
mods with a keen eye and a steady nerve.
- You're working with very unique text snippets. E.g. Changing every
instance of "," to "$#$DELIMITER$#$" makes globally undoing your mistake
pretty easy. {I knew there was a reason I liked that gawdawfullly ugly
delimiter!}
- You're working with a file where you can get a fresh copy from a
backup device/server or even a live person (maybe the one who gave you
the file initially - or somebody else on the daily distribution email).
- It's a cumulative daily file! Head home early and come in tomorrow
and try again with fresh data.
I'm guessing you're not in any of those situations, but hey, sometimes
you _can_ scramble the data and get away with it.
I try to work with backup copies ... But nowadays anyway I pretty much
always work off a handwritten sheet of paper outlining my step by step
plans for folding, spindling, and multilating the file and then cross
them off one at a time as I complete each one. Works for me when I've
got mind-numbingly repetitious multiple-step file manipulation sequences
to work. <invoke 80's voice: "gag me with a sproc!" />
HTH,
RonL.
[Jon used an acronym, but I believe he noted he was using Red Hat
Enterprise as OS.]
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