mirror of
https://github.com/neovim/neovim.git
synced 2024-12-20 19:25:11 -07:00
315 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
315 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
*usr_11.txt* Nvim
|
|
|
|
VIM USER MANUAL - by Bram Moolenaar
|
|
|
|
Recovering from a crash
|
|
|
|
|
|
Did your computer crash? And you just spent hours editing? Don't panic! Vim
|
|
stores enough information to be able to restore most of your work. This
|
|
chapter shows you how to get your work back and explains how the swap file is
|
|
used.
|
|
|
|
|11.1| Basic recovery
|
|
|11.2| Where is the swap file?
|
|
|11.3| Crashed or not?
|
|
|11.4| Further reading
|
|
|
|
Next chapter: |usr_12.txt| Clever tricks
|
|
Previous chapter: |usr_10.txt| Making big changes
|
|
Table of contents: |usr_toc.txt|
|
|
|
|
==============================================================================
|
|
*11.1* Basic recovery
|
|
|
|
In most cases recovering a file is quite simple, assuming you know which file
|
|
you were editing (and the harddisk is still working). Start Vim on the file,
|
|
with the "-r" argument added: >
|
|
|
|
vim -r help.txt
|
|
|
|
Vim will read the swap file (used to store text you were editing) and may read
|
|
bits and pieces of the original file. If Vim recovered your changes you will
|
|
see these messages (with different file names, of course):
|
|
|
|
Using swap file ".help.txt.swp" ~
|
|
Original file "~/vim/runtime/doc/help.txt" ~
|
|
Recovery completed. You should check if everything is OK. ~
|
|
(You might want to write out this file under another name ~
|
|
and run diff with the original file to check for changes) ~
|
|
You may want to delete the .swp file now. ~
|
|
|
|
To be on the safe side, write this file under another name: >
|
|
|
|
:write help.txt.recovered
|
|
|
|
Compare the file with the original file to check if you ended up with what you
|
|
expected. Diff mode is very useful for this |08.7|. For example: >
|
|
|
|
:write help.txt.recovered
|
|
:edit #
|
|
:diffsp help.txt
|
|
|
|
Watch out for the original file to contain a more recent version (you saved
|
|
the file just before the computer crashed). And check that no lines are
|
|
missing (something went wrong that Vim could not recover).
|
|
If Vim produces warning messages when recovering, read them carefully.
|
|
This is rare though.
|
|
|
|
If the recovery resulted in text that is exactly the same as the file
|
|
contents, you will get this message:
|
|
|
|
Using swap file ".help.txt.swp" ~
|
|
Original file "~/vim/runtime/doc/help.txt" ~
|
|
Recovery completed. Buffer contents equals file contents. ~
|
|
You may want to delete the .swp file now. ~
|
|
|
|
This usually happens if you already recovered your changes, or you wrote the
|
|
file after making changes. It is safe to delete the swap file now.
|
|
|
|
It is normal that the last few changes can not be recovered. Vim flushes the
|
|
changes to disk when you don't type for about four seconds, or after typing
|
|
about two hundred characters. This is set with the 'updatetime' and
|
|
'updatecount' options. Thus when Vim didn't get a chance to save itself when
|
|
the system went down, the changes after the last flush will be lost.
|
|
|
|
If you were editing without a file name, give an empty string as argument: >
|
|
|
|
vim -r ""
|
|
|
|
You must be in the right directory, otherwise Vim can't find the swap file.
|
|
|
|
==============================================================================
|
|
*11.2* Where is the swap file?
|
|
|
|
Vim can store the swap file in several places. Normally it is in the same
|
|
directory as the original file. To find it, change to the directory of the
|
|
file, and use: >
|
|
|
|
vim -r
|
|
|
|
Vim will list the swap files that it can find. It will also look in other
|
|
directories where the swap file for files in the current directory may be
|
|
located. It will not find swap files in any other directories though, it
|
|
doesn't search the directory tree.
|
|
The output could look like this:
|
|
|
|
Swap files found: ~
|
|
In current directory: ~
|
|
1. .main.c.swp ~
|
|
owned by: mool dated: Tue May 29 21:00:25 2001 ~
|
|
file name: ~mool/vim/vim6/src/main.c ~
|
|
modified: YES ~
|
|
user name: mool host name: masaka.moolenaar.net ~
|
|
process ID: 12525 ~
|
|
In directory ~/tmp: ~
|
|
-- none -- ~
|
|
In directory /var/tmp: ~
|
|
-- none -- ~
|
|
In directory /tmp: ~
|
|
-- none -- ~
|
|
|
|
If there are several swap files that look like they may be the one you want to
|
|
use, a list is given of these swap files and you are requested to enter the
|
|
number of the one you want to use. Carefully look at the dates to decide
|
|
which one you want to use.
|
|
In case you don't know which one to use, just try them one by one and check
|
|
the resulting files if they are what you expected.
|
|
|
|
|
|
USING A SPECIFIC SWAP FILE
|
|
|
|
If you know which swap file needs to be used, you can recover by giving the
|
|
swap file name. Vim will then find out the name of the original file from
|
|
the swap file.
|
|
|
|
Example: >
|
|
vim -r .help.txt.swo
|
|
|
|
This is also handy when the swap file is in another directory than expected.
|
|
Vim recognizes files with the pattern *.s[uvw][a-z] as swap files.
|
|
|
|
If this still does not work, see what file names Vim reports and rename the
|
|
files accordingly. Check the 'directory' option to see where Vim may have
|
|
put the swap file.
|
|
|
|
Note:
|
|
Vim tries to find the swap file by searching the directories in the
|
|
'dir' option, looking for files that match "filename.sw?". If
|
|
wildcard expansion doesn't work (e.g., when the 'shell' option is
|
|
invalid), Vim does a desperate try to find the file "filename.swp".
|
|
If that fails too, you will have to give the name of the swapfile
|
|
itself to be able to recover the file.
|
|
|
|
==============================================================================
|
|
*11.3* Crashed or not? *ATTENTION* *E325*
|
|
|
|
Vim tries to protect you from doing stupid things. Suppose you innocently
|
|
start editing a file, expecting the contents of the file to show up. Instead,
|
|
Vim produces a very long message:
|
|
|
|
E325: ATTENTION ~
|
|
Found a swap file by the name ".main.c.swp" ~
|
|
owned by: mool dated: Tue May 29 21:09:28 2001 ~
|
|
file name: ~mool/vim/vim6/src/main.c ~
|
|
modified: no ~
|
|
user name: mool host name: masaka.moolenaar.net ~
|
|
process ID: 12559 (still running) ~
|
|
While opening file "main.c" ~
|
|
dated: Tue May 29 19:46:12 2001 ~
|
|
~
|
|
(1) Another program may be editing the same file. ~
|
|
If this is the case, be careful not to end up with two ~
|
|
different instances of the same file when making changes. ~
|
|
Quit, or continue with caution. ~
|
|
~
|
|
(2) An edit session for this file crashed. ~
|
|
If this is the case, use ":recover" or "vim -r main.c" ~
|
|
to recover the changes (see ":help recovery"). ~
|
|
If you did this already, delete the swap file ".main.c.swp" ~
|
|
to avoid this message. ~
|
|
|
|
You get this message, because, when starting to edit a file, Vim checks if a
|
|
swap file already exists for that file. If there is one, there must be
|
|
something wrong. It may be one of these two situations.
|
|
|
|
1. Another edit session is active on this file. Look in the message for the
|
|
line with "process ID". It might look like this:
|
|
|
|
process ID: 12559 (still running) ~
|
|
|
|
The text "(still running)" indicates that the process editing this file
|
|
runs on the same computer. When working on a non-Unix system you will not
|
|
get this extra hint. When editing a file over a network, you may not see
|
|
the hint, because the process might be running on another computer. In
|
|
those two cases you must find out what the situation is yourself.
|
|
If there is another Vim editing the same file, continuing to edit will
|
|
result in two versions of the same file. The one that is written last will
|
|
overwrite the other one, resulting in loss of changes. You better quit
|
|
this Vim.
|
|
|
|
2. The swap file might be the result from a previous crash of Vim or the
|
|
computer. Check the dates mentioned in the message. If the date of the
|
|
swap file is newer than the file you were editing, and this line appears:
|
|
|
|
modified: YES ~
|
|
|
|
Then you very likely have a crashed edit session that is worth recovering.
|
|
If the date of the file is newer than the date of the swap file, then
|
|
either it was changed after the crash (perhaps you recovered it earlier,
|
|
but didn't delete the swap file?), or else the file was saved before the
|
|
crash but after the last write of the swap file (then you're lucky: you
|
|
don't even need that old swap file). Vim will warn you for this with this
|
|
extra line:
|
|
|
|
NEWER than swap file! ~
|
|
|
|
|
|
NOTE that in the following situation Vim knows the swap file is not useful and
|
|
will automatically delete it:
|
|
- The file is a valid swap file (Magic number is correct).
|
|
- The flag that the file was modified is not set.
|
|
- The process is not running.
|
|
|
|
You can programmatically deal with this situation with the |FileChangedShell|
|
|
autocommand event.
|
|
|
|
|
|
UNREADABLE SWAP FILE ~
|
|
|
|
Sometimes the line
|
|
|
|
[cannot be read] ~
|
|
|
|
will appear under the name of the swap file. This can be good or bad,
|
|
depending on circumstances.
|
|
|
|
It is good if a previous editing session crashed without having made any
|
|
changes to the file. Then a directory listing of the swap file will show
|
|
that it has zero bytes. You may delete it and proceed.
|
|
|
|
It is slightly bad if you don't have read permission for the swap file. You
|
|
may want to view the file read-only, or quit. On multi-user systems, if you
|
|
yourself did the last changes under a different login name, a logout
|
|
followed by a login under that other name might cure the "read error". Or
|
|
else you might want to find out who last edited (or is editing) the file and
|
|
have a talk with them.
|
|
|
|
It is very bad if it means there is a physical read error on the disk
|
|
containing the swap file. Fortunately, this almost never happens.
|
|
You may want to view the file read-only at first (if you can), to see the
|
|
extent of the changes that were "forgotten". If you are the one in charge of
|
|
that file, be prepared to redo your last changes.
|
|
|
|
|
|
WHAT TO DO? *swap-exists-choices*
|
|
|
|
If dialogs are supported you will be asked to select one of six choices:
|
|
|
|
Swap file ".main.c.swp" already exists! ~
|
|
[O]pen Read-Only, (E)dit anyway, (R)ecover, (Q)uit, (A)bort, (D)elete it: ~
|
|
|
|
O Open the file readonly. Use this when you just want to view the file and
|
|
don't need to recover it. You might want to use this when you know someone
|
|
else is editing the file, but you just want to look in it and not make
|
|
changes.
|
|
|
|
E Edit the file anyway. Use this with caution! If the file is being edited
|
|
in another Vim, you might end up with two versions of the file. Vim will
|
|
try to warn you when this happens, but better be safe than sorry.
|
|
|
|
R Recover the file from the swap file. Use this if you know that the swap
|
|
file contains changes that you want to recover.
|
|
|
|
Q Quit. This avoids starting to edit the file. Use this if there is another
|
|
Vim editing the same file.
|
|
When you just started Vim, this will exit Vim. When starting Vim with
|
|
files in several windows, Vim quits only if there is a swap file for the
|
|
first one. When using an edit command, the file will not be loaded and you
|
|
are taken back to the previously edited file.
|
|
|
|
A Abort. Like Quit, but also abort further commands. This is useful when
|
|
loading a script that edits several files, such as a session with multiple
|
|
windows.
|
|
|
|
D Delete the swap file. Use this when you are sure you no longer need it.
|
|
For example, when it doesn't contain changes, or when the file itself is
|
|
newer than the swap file.
|
|
On Unix this choice is only offered when the process that created the
|
|
swap file does not appear to be running.
|
|
|
|
If you do not get the dialog (you are running a version of Vim that does not
|
|
support it), you will have to do it manually. To recover the file, use this
|
|
command: >
|
|
|
|
:recover
|
|
|
|
|
|
Vim cannot always detect that a swap file already exists for a file. This is
|
|
the case when the other edit session puts the swap files in another directory
|
|
or when the path name for the file is different when editing it on different
|
|
machines. Therefore, don't rely on Vim always warning you.
|
|
|
|
If you really don't want to see this message, you can add the 'A' flag to the
|
|
'shortmess' option. But it's very unusual that you need this.
|
|
|
|
For programatic access to the swap file, see |swapinfo()|.
|
|
|
|
==============================================================================
|
|
*11.4* Further reading
|
|
|
|
|swap-file| An explanation about where the swap file will be created and
|
|
what its name is.
|
|
|:preserve| Manually flushing the swap file to disk.
|
|
|:swapname| See the name of the swap file for the current file.
|
|
'updatecount' Number of key strokes after which the swap file is flushed to
|
|
disk.
|
|
'updatetime' Timeout after which the swap file is flushed to disk.
|
|
'directory' List of directory names where to store the swap file.
|
|
|
|
==============================================================================
|
|
|
|
Next chapter: |usr_12.txt| Clever tricks
|
|
|
|
Copyright: see |manual-copyright| vim:tw=78:ts=8:noet:ft=help:norl:
|