Timeline for Why has '-' been chosen as the backup file suffix for certain Unix system files?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
8 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 4, 2020 at 9:30 | comment | added | ychaouche | @Celada my filename-- is a newer backup of filename, because filename- is already taken by an older backup. | |
| Jan 23, 2015 at 16:32 | vote | accept | syntagma | ||
| Jan 22, 2015 at 22:50 | history | edited | Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' | edited tags | |
| Jan 22, 2015 at 12:51 | comment | added | TRiG | @wurtel. Backup is a noun (as is setup and login). In each case, the verb form is two words, a prepositional verb: hence back up, or, in the past tense, backed up. You may find your English flows more smoothly if you follow these guidelines, and you will not have to create monstrosities such as *backupped. | |
| Jan 22, 2015 at 9:06 | answer | added | orion | timeline score: 7 | |
| Jan 22, 2015 at 7:41 | comment | added | wurtel | Some unix systems have the old passwd backupped as opasswd | |
| Jan 22, 2015 at 7:09 | comment | added | Celada | For what it's worth, I don't think that convention is widespread at all. This may be quite idiosyncratic to /etc/passwd and friends. Similar conventions that are widespread are filename~ (for backups, convention from emacs) and filename-- (something intentionally disabled by the sysadmin). | |
| Jan 22, 2015 at 6:59 | history | asked | syntagma | CC BY-SA 3.0 |