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in reply to Re^2: Need a little help appending lines
in thread Need a little help appending lines

It's a bad idea to edit a file in-place without a backup, let's just put it that way. Creating a separate output file from your source means your source *is* the backup. So moritz's point, a little less succinctly put, is, "Don't edit a file with important data unless you can undo any changes."

(Or use version control.)
  • Comment on Re^3: Need a little help appending lines

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Re^4: Need a little help appending lines
by shmem (Chancellor) on Sep 12, 2007 at 21:23 UTC
    Precaution against data loss is an entirely different thing, though related. But that concern doesn't justify marking in-place edits as bad idea, more so generally.

    Perl wouldn't have the -i switch if doing in-place edits wasn't a good idea. Generally speaking.

    --shmem 

    _($_=" "x(1<<5)."?\n".q·/)Oo.  G°\        /
                              /\_¯/(q    /
----------------------------  \__(m.====·.(_("always off the crowd"))."·
");sub _{s./.($e="'Itrs `mnsgdq Gdbj O`qkdq")=~y/"-y/#-z/;$e.e && print}
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