0

Today I was trying to make some changes in a .json file in Linux using vi editor. While saving the file I got the warning saying cannot write to the backup file, use ! to override. I then ran :w! command and it said that updates were saved. But when I did cat [filename], the file was empty.

Later I realized I was getting the warning in vim because system storage was full. I freed up some space. I then ran vi -r [filename] as well to recover the file but it says No swap file found for [filename].

There are 5 files additionally created with extensions .json~, .jsox~, .jsoy~, .jsoz~, .jsov~ all being empty.

Is there a way to recover the file as it was an important one?

Improve this question
4
  • From your most recent backup (or snapshot)? Commented Dec 7, 2020 at 21:31
  • Is there a default directory where vi stores it's backup? Commented Dec 8, 2020 at 8:17
  • vi doesn't make backups. Systems administrators do. Commented Dec 8, 2020 at 19:01
  • "it said that updates were saved": what exactly did it say? It sounds like it never wrote anything at all. Commented Dec 9, 2020 at 2:49

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
0

When you got the message saying “cannot write to the backup file,” that meant that those files you wrote (e.g., json~) were going to be empty. In addition, if you had the swap file set up, because the disk was full, there'd be no way to write to it, and therefore vim -r wouldn't be effective. (Swap files may or may not actually have been enabled.)

So unless you have a set of backups, you're unlikely to be able to recover your data.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Start asking to get answers

Find the answer to your question by asking.

Ask question

Explore related questions

See similar questions with these tags.