[ale] Files w/ cedilla at end

[Greg Sabino Mullane]

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> I keep getting these files with the "~" at the end of them...

As mentioned, most editors (and some other tools) use a tilde 
as a standard "backup" file. This is generally a very useful 
feature, but if you really do not want them, here are some 
options:

1) If you use rcs/cvs, most editors will be smart enough to 
recognize this and not create any backup files (since this 
would be redundant, and rcs does a much better job than a 
tilde file).

2) You can have the editor place the backup files in another 
location, e.g. a "backup" directory. Consult your editor's 
docs on how to do this.

3) Turn off the automatic backup system entirely. This is 
possible, but not recommended. Someday one of those files 
may save your [ass|sanity|job], even many months later. Using 
rcs would be even better.

4) Have a cronjob perioically cleanse your system of all 
the backup files. This is not receommended either: see 
number three. Also, a cronjob is not smart enough to realize 
when someone has named a normal file with a tilde on the end. 
(helpful hint: never name a file with a tilde on the end. :)

Options 3 and 4 are very terrible solutions: I mention them 
only to point out their flaws. Please don't do them.

As far as cleaning them out, I use some simple global aliases:

alias nj='rm -i *~'

This works great because it forces me to manually look at 
each file before I delete it. It also does not catch any 
files that begin with a dot: I prefer to force myself to go an 
extra step to delete those:

alias nj2='rm -i .*~'


You could easily combine the above two. You could even do 
something like this:

alias nj='echo "Why not use rcs??";rm -i *~'


On a similar note (on emacs at least) you might also see some 
other types of files appear. "Pound files" are created as a 
type of "journaling" that keeps tracks of changes as you 
edit a file. They look like this:

#filename#

When you exit the editor normally, the pound file is erased after 
the original file and its changes have been saved. If the editor 
is killed, this file will still exist. Don't erase these files 
either, but use M-x recover-file command to restore most, if not 
all, of the changes to your file from the time of the last save 
until the editor was killed. A killed editor session will create 
a file like this in your home directory: .saves-12345-hostname~

which simply contains the name of the file(s) that have 
active pound files associated with them.

The above paragraph is emacs specific; I don't know vi as well, 
but I would be interested in how it does similar things, if 
anyone would like to share..



- --
Greg Sabino Mullane greg at turnstep.com
PGP Key: 0x14964AC8 200201290919
PostgreSQL consultant

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