Hmm, looks like I'm partially mistaken. Vim never does the inode pivot trick *in circumstances where I might've noticed*, so not when the file: - has multiple links, or - is a symlink, or - is in an unwritable directory, or - otherwise appears to be something other than a plain file.
But it turns out it does pivot the inode when it thinks it won't be noticed, which makes sense because it's less risky than overwriting a file (which could result in data loss if the write fails). So I've learned something new, thankyou. -Martin On Tue, 9 Apr 2024 at 11:13, Kerin Millar <k...@plushkava.net> wrote: > On Tue, 9 Apr 2024 10:42:58 +1200 > Martin D Kealey <mar...@kurahaupo.gen.nz> wrote: > > > On Mon, 8 Apr 2024 at 01:49, Kerin Millar <k...@plushkava.net> wrote: > > > > > the method by which vim amends files is similar to that of sed -i. > > > > > > > I was about to write "nonsense, vim **never** does that for me", but > then I > > remembered that using ":w!" instead of ":w" (or ":wq!" instead of ":wq") > > will write the file as normal, but if that fails, it will attempt to > remove > > it and create a new one. Ironically, that's precisely one of the cases > > where using "sed -i" is a bad idea, but at least with vim you've already > > tried ":w" and noticed that it failed, and made a considered decision to > > use ":w!" instead. > > > > Except that nowadays many folk always type ":wq!" to exit vim, and never > > put any thought into this undesirable side effect. > > > > I put that in the same bucket as using "kill -9" to terminate daemons, or > > liberally using "-f" or "--force" in lots of other places. Those are bad > > habits, since they override useful safety checks, and I recommend making > a > > strenuous effort to unlearn such patterns. Then you can use these > stronger > > versions only when (1) the soft versions fail, and (2) you understand the > > collateral damage, and (3) you've thought about it and decided that it's > > acceptable in the particular circumstances. > > > > -Martin > > > > PS: I've never understood the preference for ":wq" over "ZZ" (or ":x"); I > > want to leave the modification time unchanged if I don't edit the file. > > Alright. In that case, I don't know why I wasn't able to 'inject' a > replacement command with it. I'll give it another try and see whether I can > determine what happened. > > -- > Kerin Millar >
