Last month I complained about how brutal the rm program in Linux was and how I cocked things up when I wanted to remove the autosaved backup files that jed creates. Here's the solution...

I created a script in ~/bin/Mvbackupfiles that looks like this:


#!/bin/sh
mv -v *~ /tmp

Now, whenever I want to clear a directory of all files like dummy.py~ or README.txt~, I just run Mvbackupfiles and I become a much happier and tidier person.

Here's what it can look like:


peterbe@trillian:~/dev/signature_hider $ ls
index.html  index.html~
peterbe@trillian:~/dev/signature_hider $ Mvbackupfiles 
`index.html~' -> `/tmp/index.html~'
peterbe@trillian:~/dev/signature_hider $ ls
index.html

Comments

Sascha Welter

Isn't there a setting to put those backup files into /tmp in the first place?

Your email will never ever be published.

Previous:
createElement('a') with a javascript href November 21, 2005 Web development
Next:
Islington Knuckle Walk November 24, 2005 Kung Fu
Related by category:
How to find which git SHA it was when you merged in the default branch February 26, 2026 Linux
hylite as an executable October 15, 2025 Linux
Elasticsearch memory usage December 11, 2025 Linux
How to count the number of non-blank lines with Bash September 3, 2025 Linux
Related by keyword:
Wing IDE versus Jed December 11, 2008 Linux
Jed looking like Emacs September 28, 2005 Linux
Local jed settings April 19, 2013 Linux, macOS
Keybinding ALT-F in Jed January 27, 2004 Linux