Backups with perl -i

[p5pRT]

Migrated from rt.perl.org#1003 (status was 'resolved')

Searchable as RT1003$

[p5pRT]

From carl@tashian.com

Say we create a file and perform an in-place edit on it, saving the
backup​:

[79] carl@​caesar​:~/testing> echo "1" > test
[82] carl@​caesar​:~/testing> perl -pi.bak -e 's/1/23/g' *

Here are the two files we're left with​:

[81] carl@​caesar​:~/testing> ls -l
total 2
-rw-r--r-- 1 carl users 3 Jul 15 14​:29 test
-rw-r--r-- 1 carl users 2 Jul 15 14​:29 test.bak

Now look what happens whene we run another pass on these new files​:

[82] carl@​caesar​:~/testing> perl -pi.bak -e 's/23/456/g' *
[83] carl@​caesar​:~/testing> ls -l
total 3
-rw-r--r-- 1 carl users 4 Jul 15 14​:29 test
-rw-r--r-- 1 carl users 4 Jul 15 14​:29 test.bak
-rw-r--r-- 1 carl users 3 Jul 15 14​:29 test.bak.bak

'test' and 'test.bak' are identical, and 'test.bak.bak' contains a
backup of 'test'. Is this the expected behavior?

Perl Info

Site configuration information for perl 5.00503:

Configured by carl at Thu Jun 10 01:13:20 EDT 1999.

Summary of my perl5 (5.0 patchlevel 5 subversion 3) configuration:
  Platform:
    osname=linux, osvers=2.2.9, archname=i386-linux
    uname='linux caesar 2.2.9 #6 wed jun 9 15:56:34 edt 1999 i586
unknown '
    hint=previous, useposix=true, d_sigaction=define
    usethreads=undef useperlio=undef d_sfio=undef
  Compiler:
    cc='cc', optimize='-O2', gccversion=2.7.2.3
    cppflags='-Dbool=char -DHAS_BOOL -I/usr/local/include'
    ccflags ='-Dbool=char -DHAS_BOOL -I/usr/local/include'
    stdchar='char', d_stdstdio=define, usevfork=false
    intsize=4, longsize=4, ptrsize=4, doublesize=8
    d_longlong=define, longlongsize=8, d_longdbl=define, longdblsize=12
    alignbytes=4, usemymalloc=n, prototype=define
  Linker and Libraries:
    ld='cc', ldflags =' -L/usr/local/lib'
    libpth=/usr/local/lib /lib /usr/lib
    libs=-lndbm -lgdbm -ldbm -ldb -ldl -lm -lc
    libc=/lib/libc.so.6, so=so, useshrplib=false, libperl=libperl.a
  Dynamic Linking:
    dlsrc=dl_dlopen.xs, dlext=so, d_dlsymun=undef, ccdlflags='-rdynamic'
    cccdlflags='-fpic', lddlflags='-shared -L/usr/local/lib'

Locally applied patches:
    


@INC for perl 5.00503:
    /usr/lib/perl5/i386-linux
    /usr/lib/perl5
    /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/i386-linux
    /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl
    .


Environment for perl 5.00503:
    HOME=/home/admin/carl
    LANG (unset)
    LANGUAGE (unset)
    LD_LIBRARY_PATH (unset)
    LOGDIR (unset)
   
PATH=/usr/local/pgsql/bin:/usr/local/bin:/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/lo
cal/bin:/usr/X11/bin:.:/usr/X11R6/bin:/usr/openwin/bin:/usr/games:.:/usr/lib/teT
eX/bin
    PERL_BADLANG (unset)
    SHELL=/bin/tcsh