| 1 | <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN"> |
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| 2 | |
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| 3 | <html> |
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| 4 | |
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| 5 | <head> |
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| 6 | <title>J User's Guide - Autosave, Crash Recovery and Backups</title> |
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| 7 | <LINK REL="stylesheet" HREF="j.css" TYPE="text/css"> |
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| 8 | </head> |
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| 9 | |
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| 10 | <body> |
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| 11 | |
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| 12 | <a href="contents.html">Top</a> |
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| 13 | |
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| 14 | <hr> |
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| 15 | |
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| 16 | <h1>Autosave, Crash Recovery and Backups</h1> |
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| 17 | |
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| 18 | <hr> |
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| 19 | |
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| 20 | <p> |
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| 21 | |
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| 22 | To minimize loss of work in the event of a crash, j autosaves each modified |
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| 23 | buffer whenever there is no user activity for a minimum of two seconds. This |
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| 24 | has no effect on the file you're editing; modified buffers are written out to |
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| 25 | temporary files in j's autosave directory (which is normally |
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| 26 | <code>~/.j/autosave</code> on Unix or <code>C:\.j\autosave</code> on Windows, |
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| 27 | but see below). |
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| 28 | |
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| 29 | <p> |
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| 30 | |
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| 31 | Whenever you explicitly save a file, the corresponding autosave file is |
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| 32 | deleted. When j exits normally, all the autosave files are deleted. If a crash |
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| 33 | occurs, the autosave files will still be around when you restart j, and j will |
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| 34 | ask you, one by one, if you want to recover the files in question. If you say |
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| 35 | yes, the file will be restored from the corresponding autosave file. If you say |
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| 36 | no, j will offer to delete the autosave file. If you choose not to delete the |
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| 37 | autosave file, it will remain in the autosave directory for perusal and |
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| 38 | disposition at your leisure. |
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| 39 | |
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| 40 | <p> |
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| 41 | |
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| 42 | Whenever you explicitly save a file, a backup of the file is written to the |
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| 43 | backup directory, which by default is a directory called <code>backup</code> |
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| 44 | located in the home directory of the current user (i.e. <code>~/backup</code> |
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| 45 | on Unix). |
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| 46 | |
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| 47 | <p> |
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| 48 | |
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| 49 | On Windows, the home directory of the current user normally defaults to |
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| 50 | <code>C:\</code> (the default is actually the root directory of the first |
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| 51 | writable drive, excluding <code>A:</code> and <code>B:</code>), so the default |
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| 52 | backup directory on Windows is normally <code>C:\backup</code>. |
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| 53 | |
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| 54 | <p> |
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| 55 | |
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| 56 | You can specify a different home directory by starting j with the |
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| 57 | <code>--home</code> command line option: |
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| 58 | <pre> |
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| 59 | j --home=C:\ArmedBear |
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| 60 | </pre> |
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| 61 | In this case your home directory, as far as j is concerned, will be |
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| 62 | <code>C:\ArmedBear</code>, the <code>.j</code> directory will be |
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| 63 | <code>C:\ArmedBear\.j</code>, autosave files will be stored in |
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| 64 | <code>C:\ArmedBear\.j\autosave</code>, and the default backup directory will be |
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| 65 | <code>C:\ArmedBear\backup</code>. |
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| 66 | |
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| 67 | <p> |
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| 68 | |
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| 69 | You can specify the location of the backup directory separately by setting the |
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| 70 | <code>backupDirectory</code> property in your |
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| 71 | <a href="preferences.html">preferences</a> file: |
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| 72 | <pre> |
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| 73 | backupDirectory=/home/peter/work/backup |
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| 74 | </pre> |
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| 75 | |
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| 76 | The backup file (in the backup directory) always has the same name as the original file. |
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| 77 | |
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| 78 | <p> |
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| 79 | |
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| 80 | It's a good idea to visit your backup directory occasionally and clean it out; |
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| 81 | there is no mechanism in j to do this automatically. |
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| 82 | |
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| 83 | </body> |
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| 84 | |
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| 85 | </html> |
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