Atomic write on saving missions please?

[cfrag]

This is just a small request to ease my mind. 

 

Currently, it appears that saving a mission while working in ED simply overwrites the existing one. This creates the small risk that a crash during write renders the entire mission unusable. Since I save regularly, this is an occurrence that hits me once every two moons (6 times a year), so it's a rather small issue. When it hits me, I won't lose too much because my missions folder is backed up regularly. Still, it's highly annoying when it occurs, so every time I hit 'save' or 'run & save', I hold my breath.

 

May I recommend and request that saving missions uses the tried and tested 'atomic save' approach of 'rename old - write new - delete old' so that when ME crashes during write, the old one is still present and can immediately be used as backup?  A small quality of life improvement for me who only has few hair left

 

Thank you,

-ch

 

Edited July 9, 2021 by cfrag

[AvgWhiteGuy]

I'm not sure what you mean by 'atomic write' but a option for a 'versioning' system would be great whereas it saves in increments.

[Aarnoman]

23 hours ago, AvgWhiteGuy said:

I'm not sure what you mean by 'atomic write' but a option for a 'versioning' system would be great whereas it saves in increments.

He does explain it pretty well in his post:

Quote

...uses the tried and tested 'atomic save' approach of 'rename old - write new - delete old' so that when ME crashes during write, the old one is still present and can immediately be used as backup? 

 

[cfrag]

Thanks, @Aarnoman - indeed. "Atomic" as in the original Greek meaning ('unsplittable' - an operation that can't be interrupted, so if it is interrupted, it is as if it never happened. In this case it would be full write, then rename old, rename new to old). 

 

That being said, it seems that ED now added a mysterious 'Open Backup' option in the File menu. I don't know how it works, but it seems that this is getting quite close to atomic saves, and keeping the last version as backup. I'd love to hear more about how this works (especially if/when the newest version can no longer be read because the write destroyed it).