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Pablo Fernandez
Asked: 2011-08-19 09:51:17 +0800 CST

Accidentally overwrote file instead of appending. Is there hope?

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I accidentally did this:

command > ~/.bash_profile

Instead of

command >> ~/.bash_profile

I know, I'm an idiot. Is there a way to recover the old .bash_profile file?

Thanks a lot for your help

PS: The machine is a macbook pro with Leopard.

mac-osx unix osx-leopard

3 Answers

  1. Unless you had Time Machine or some other backup of the file, it's gone.

    If that was the original .bash_profile, according to this page, the default setup for users is stored in /System/Library/User Template/English.lproj, you should be able to get another copy of the original from there. Or just create a new user and take theirs.

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  2. I've just got the same accident. This is how I could recover some lost data in my bash_profile. Assume you are still in the terminal where you've just run the bad command:

    $ echo 'something' > ~/.bash_profile

    For PATH and ENV variables, use this command:

    $printenv

    For aliases, use this command and copy the ouput:

    $alias

    For functions, use this command to list all the function names:

    $compgen -A function

    And use this command to show the content of a function name:

    $type function_name

    Hope this helps some other people :)

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  3. It's possible but unlikely. The effort involved in recovering it will most likely be harder than simply rewriting it or recovering it from a backup.

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