[thelist] File recovery?

[Luther, Ron]

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.]