Coder Merlin File Recovery

From Coder Merlin
Within these castle walls be forged Mavens of Computer Science ...
— Merlin, The Coder

Uh-oh. What can you do if you accidentally deleted (or otherwise mangled) a file? If you're reading this page it's because you didn't backup your files and/or use source control properly. Before proceeding, make a mental note to never find yourself in this situation again and make the commitment to backup early and often and use git without fail. Also, never rely on magical tools to backup and restore your files; that's your responsibility. Nonetheless, since you're still reading, it seems that you have no better options, so here's how to use oops.

Type oops on the bash command line:

akshat-gupta@codermerlin:~$  oops


You'll receive a brief description of the syntax:

oops! restores accidentally deleted or modified files

USAGE:
ls <filename>
        list available restore versions for the specified filename

diff <filename> <version>
        diff current file version with the specified repository version

cp <filename> <version> <targetFilename>
        cp specified repository version to targetFilename

oops relies on "snapshots" of your directory which are automatically saved periodically. To find a list of snapshots, use the "ls" (list) command specifying the filename. As an example, let's say you're in your project directory and accidentally deleted the file "main.swift". You can use the "ls" (list) command to obtain a list of available backups from the repository.

akshat-gupta@codermerlin:~$  oops ls main.swift

You'll receive a list of available backups. The first line is the file which is searched for in the repository. Subsequent lines, if any, list in reverse chronological order (newest first) the time of an available backup, the size (in bytes) of the backup, and a version identifier.

/home/john-williams/projects/oops/Sources/oops/main.swift
2019-03-14 18:10:52     15910   36076846
2019-03-13 22:25:51     15349   38067634
2019-03-13 21:44:28     14422   38067205
2019-03-13 20:24:42     14763   38066074
2019-03-13 19:59:24     12959   38065421
2019-03-12 19:42:00     12009   38097985
2019-03-11 23:59:58     9131    38070737
2019-03-10 21:28:39     1897    37830547

If you know which version you want to retrieve (perhaps it's just the most recent) you can execute the "cp" (copy) command specifying filename, version and restored filename. As an example, to retrieve the most recent version of the file main.swift:

akshat-gupta@codermerlin:~$  oops cp main.swift 36076846 main.swift.restored

/home/john-williams/projects/oops/Sources/oops/main.swift 36076846 -> /home/john-williams/projects/oops/Sources/oops/main.swift.restored

If you're not sure about which file to retrieve, you can use the diff command to compare the differences between the current file and the specified version. As an example, to compare the most recent version of the file main.swift:

akshat-gupta@codermerlin:~$  oops diff main.swift 36076846


You'll receive a diff listing the differences between the two files.