undelete directory

[Alex Satrapa]

Antti.Roppola at brs.gov.au wrote:
> Would it be sensible to change the behaviour of delete
> to not unlink the file but move it into a cache?

I'm not sure what all this means, but you might take a look at this:
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=undelete&btnG=Google+Search&meta=group%3Dcomp.sources.misc

I don't know if that code is Linux-compatible (judging from the age, I'd 
guess not). AFAIK, it's only a replacement for the shell "rm" command - 
thus no use to Samba and friends.

Users of Macintosh computers are in luck though - it's the desktop OS 
that manages the Trash.  IIRC, depending on whether you use netatalk or 
Dave or Mac OS X's built-in SMB support, the trash will appear in 
.Trash, .Network\ Trash or /.Trashes or even ./._.Trashes.

> For example, I used to have a trashcan app that cycled
> through 7 daily trashcans, giving me a week's grace.

Back in the Good Old Days of Mac OS 7, there was a utility called 
"TrashMan" which would delete files from the Trash after a set period of 
time.  So all that would be in the Trash would be files that were 
trashed sometime in the last 7 days, for example.

> On a side not, I once discovered a "deleted" directory
> months after the fact. Someone had used a GUI to drop it
> deep into some forgotten corner of the filesystem.

All the more reason to be careful about permissions - have the sysadmin 
set up directories inside read-only directories, so they can't be moved ;)

And although I don't (yet) follow my own advice - don't forget backups!

Alex