what is a swap file...?
 

Hi All.....

Me using one txt filefrom terminal .... suddenly My Computer was improperly shutdown accidentally....then i reboot it..... and trying to use same txt file from terminal.... at that time i got this swap file message.. as follows

E325: ATTENTION
Found a swap file by the name ".Abbrevations_ofComputerWords.txt.swp"
owned by: root dated: Thu Jan 6 11:02:32 2005
file name: ~root/zam/Abbrevations_ofComputerWords.txt
modified: no
user name: root host name: redhat
process ID: 4237
While opening file "Abbrevations_ofComputerWords.txt"
dated: Fri Jan 7 14:50:04 2005
NEWER than swap file!

(1) Another program may be editing the same file.
If this is the case, be careful not to end up with two
different instances of the same file when making changes.
Quit, or continue with caution.

(2) An edit session for this file crashed.
If this is the case, use ":recover" or "vim -r Abbrevations_ofComputerWords.txt"
to recover the changes (see ":help recovery").
If you did this already, delete the swap file ".Abbrevations_ofComputerWords.txt.swp"
to avoid this message.

Swap file ".Abbrevations_ofComputerWords.txt.swp" already exists!
[O]pen Read-Only, (E)dit anyway, (R)ecover, (Q)uit, (D)elete it:

*************************************************************************************************
this is the first time i experience with such type of incident..
.............Actually what is this "Swap File"????????????
why it was created?

i went with R option for recovery....? any help would be appreciate

Thnx in advance.
zameer

Unlike Windows programs, Linux programs ask you what you want to do in plain english. The message is obvious. What do you think you should do?

Sorry I'm not going to tell you what to do.

well mr electro... actaully my question was ....among 4 options Recovery , Delete, Edit,Read Only.... which option is recommended???????

Suppose what happens when we select first- Delete instead of recovery... ??
I created one file .txt and shutdown improperly.. and then restart this time select Delete option... after that i got my previous file (original file) .... then i created another file .txt and I done same process now this time i select Recovery .... my file was recovered ... i closed this file again i started this .txt file ... i got this swap file message again .... so from this experiment what can i concluded .. that Delete is Recommended than other three options?.....is it correct??????

thnx....

I understand "swap file" as being like virtual RAM. I was told the swap file system was introduced to compensate for inadequate amounts of RAM in early computers.

As for your problem I don't know much about linux but I would guess your system did not shutdown cleanly and the text file you were working on "got stuck" in the swap. Recovery was probably the best option so if it works save your text file somewhere and if you get the same message next time you load then delete it.

If you are working from console make sure you shut down propoerly using the "halt" command.

hope that helps;)

Actually, the swap file was created by vim and has nothing to do with virtual memory. It is a backup file used by the editor. Whether you delete or recover would really depend on the situation.

Useless post. If you are not going to help, why on earth did you bother posting? The original poster is obviously new to this and has never encountered the problem. If you see a post you are unwilling to help with, pass on by: it is pointless to post only to say that you don't want to help.

Good call, Xavier!

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http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/debia.../glossary.html

Swap File

A disk file or partition used to temporarily store information when system memory runs low.

From the vim documentation:
http://www.vim.org/htmldoc/recover.html

Thanks for the helpful replies,

that documentation has cleared a few things up towards understanding this whole linux thing a bit better...