Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!ucsd!usc!apple!zorba!dtynan
From: cjc@ulysses.att.com (Chris Calabrese[mav])
Newsgroups: comp.unix
Subject: Re: Norton Utilities Under UNIX 386?
Summary: this has been done so many times...
Message-ID: <3686@zorba.Tynan.COM>
Date: 13 Jul 90 21:03:21 GMT
References: <3555@zorba.Tynan.COM> <3566@zorba.Tynan.COM>,<3580@zorba.Tynan.COM> <3642@zorba.Tynan.COM>
Sender: dtynan@zorba.Tynan.COM
Lines: 30
Approved: dtynan@zorba.Tynan.COM

In article <3642@zorba.Tynan.COM>, e89hse@rigel.efd.lth.se writes:
> 
>  I don't think there is any general method one can use to "undelete" files in
> UNIX, but one way to get around the problem is to change mv (probably through
> alias) to "mv $* /deleted/$cwd" (and some more stuff to create directories as
> needed) and then deleted files in /deleted that are older than, lets say 7
> days. (I'm using thgis system and it has saved me many hours...)
> 
>  Henrik Sandell


People have done stuff like this so many times it's ridiculous!
There's some good stuff from MIT for this sort of thing, but the real
solution is to change the symantics of the unlink() system call.  Dave
Korn (of Korn Shell fame) had a version of unlink that did something
like test the directory the thing was being deleted from for a special
sub-directory (something like .trash) into which to save the file.
Then, cron jobs were used to clean out the deleted files at the end of
the day.  If the user didn't have permission to move the file to the
trash directory or one didn't exist, the old behavior resulted.  The
cron job was able to work as long as the trash directories didn't have
their own trash directories.

Anyway, for the '386, Norton could probably do something like this, as
there are only a couple of different versions of the kernel floating
around for that architecture.
Name:			Christopher J. Calabrese
Brain loaned to:	AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ
att!ulysses!cjc		cjc@ulysses.att.com
Obligatory Quote:	``Anyone who would tell you that would also try and sell you the Brooklyn Bridge.''