It's possible the following occured:
* Editor is given a file name to edit, say "foo".
* Editor moves the file of that name to a backup file name, say "foo~".
* Editor now opens (creates) a new file with the original name.
It's a common algorithm for Mess-DOS editors, but it breaks on most Unix file systems and NTFS precisely because it ignores the side effects for both symlinks and hard links. If that's the case, you have a bug in your editor.
Yes, I think that that is what is actually happening.
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