Wicked Cool Shell Scripts

#15 Archiving Files As They're Removed

One of the most common problems that users have with Unix, in my experience, is that there is no way to recover a file or folder that has been accidentally removed. No Norton Unerase, no Mac OS X shareware utility, nada. Once you press RETURN after typing rm xyz, it's history.

A solution to this problem is to secretly and automatically archive files and directories to a .deleted-files archive. With some fancy footwork in a script, this can be made almost completely invisible to users.

The Code

 #!/bin/sh # newrm, a replacement for the existing rm command, provides a # rudimentary unremove capability by creating and utilizing a new # directory within the user's home directory. It can handle directories ...