Re: lost data?

[nmw(at)ion.le.ac.uk (Nigel Wade)]

In article <Pine.LNX.4.21.0105101040040.5135-100000@umzog.ulo.ucl.ac.uk>, src <src@umzog.ulo.ucl.ac.uk> writes:
> 
> Is there a bug in IDL's Save/Restore command?  I've just spent the last 18
> days running a Monte Carlo simulation to seemingly lose all my data.  The
> problem occured when our license manager stopped responding (network
> problem) hence the IDL session running the simulation crashed.  The MC
> code is designed to save results periodically as it runs (just in case
> this sort of thing happens).  I've just tried: 
> 
> "restore, 'mc_file.sav', /Verbose" 
> 
> only to get:
> 
> % RESTORE: IDL version 5.3 (linux, x86).
> % RESTORE: Truncated save file, restored as much as possible:
> 
> That "resored as much as possible:" is in fact 0 (zero).  Despite the file
> itself being 17 Mb!  Some of my .sav files are a lot bigger than this, yet
> don't seem to have any problems.  Is there anyway to recover this file, or
> prevent this happening again in the future?  I'm going to very upset to
> lose 18 days work...
> 
> cheers,
> S
> 

Maybe Murphy struck again, and the job terminated just as it was writing
the save file and so the file is effectively empty.

I'd suggest moving the save file elsewhere after the save is complete. 
Probably just renaming it would be sufficient. This should avoid the problem 
of empty/corrupt files if the save does not complete.

--
-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------
Nigel Wade, System Administrator, Space Plasma Physics Group,
            University of Leicester, Leicester, LE1 7RH, UK 
E-mail :    nmw@ion.le.ac.uk 
Phone :     +44 (0)116 2523568, Fax : +44 (0)116 2523555