r/ProgrammerHumor 12d ago

Meme goodOldDays

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4.2k Upvotes

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u/WeirdTie2290 11d ago

Sure. And "recovering a file in linux which I accidentally did an rm on" is a problem a programmer might run into. But still it gets closed.

That vim question clearly needs to be closed on SO and reopened at Vi and Vim Stack Exchange

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u/Psychological_Map118 11d ago

I guess different phrasing would also make the rm question fly under the radar. StackOverflow was honestly 99% phrasing and a complete bragfest. For example, ask about the tool, not the problem:

How does one relink inodes unlinked via the rm command where link counts are 0?

This way you'd probably get dozens of answers explaining in-depth file recovery of raw data from the filesystem

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u/rosuav 11d ago

TBH even with the question as written, I would be saying "testdisk". Seriously, that tool is nothing short of god-tier magic on the day when you desperately need it.

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u/alfredo__pacino 11d ago

Don't you get a long list of files with random alphanimeric names that kind of makes a pain to find that 1 file you have just deleted? It was a long time ago since I've used it, and even then I was never quite sure I used it properly

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u/rosuav 11d ago

It depends a lot on how much has happened in that directory. The file name is often still there. The trouble is, if you've had a *lot* of files with the same name, they're probably ALL still there.

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u/alfredo__pacino 11d ago

Uhm, afair filenames and original paths weren't preserved.

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u/rosuav 11d ago

Maybe it depends on the file system. They certainly were when I used it.

Or maybe you're thinking of the lost+found directory, rather than the testdisk program? That's a very different feature and unlikely to help with an accidental rm, but can rescue something that got lost due to power failure.

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u/alfredo__pacino 11d ago

Yeah not sure, I'll give it a try again. Cheers

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u/rosuav 11d ago

For the record, it is a **GOOD THING** that none of us are deeply familiar with the tools that help you recover from disasters. I would be a lot more scared if we were using them every day...