Make a backup file
Before writing to a file it is often advisable to make a backup of the original. Creating such a backup file is however also not without pitfalls.
Make a backup file is a draft programming task. It is not yet considered ready to be promoted as a complete task, for reasons that should be found in its talk page.
In this task you should create a backup file from an existing file and then write new text to the old file. The following issues should be handled:
- avoid making a copy of the file but instead rename the original and then write a new file with the original filename
- if a copy needs to be made, please explain why rename is not possible.
- keep in mind symlinks, and do not rename or copy the link but the target.
(if there is a link foo -> bar/baz
, then bar/baz
should be renamed to bar/baz.backup
and then the new text should be written to bar/baz
)
- it is assumed that you have permission to write in the target location, thus permission errors need not be handled.
- you may choose the backup filename per preference or given limitations.(it should somehow include the original filename however)
- please try to avoid executing external commands, and especially avoid calling a shell script.
Common Lisp
<lang lisp>(defun save-with-backup (filename data)
(let ((file (probe-file filename))) (rename-file file (concatenate 'string (file-namestring file) ",1")) (with-open-file (out file :direction :output :if-exists :supersede) (with-standard-io-syntax (print data out)))))</lang>