what are hidden files ending with ~?

Question

I noticed while working on my site through nano/terminal that ubuntu creates weird ~ files.

I've index.php~ etc.

I imagine this are backup files? is this correct? why does it do this? and how do I get rid of this functionality?

And related, if you already have a bunch of those backup files laying around and want to remove them all automatically from the terminal, see How do I remove hidden backup files? — IQAndreas, Nov 11 '13 at 01:29

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 16 '11 at 14:58

5

Yes, those are backup files, most Unix editors do that. You can disable them with:

unset backup

in your ~/.nanorc. See man nanorc for more information.

answered Oct 16 '11 at 14:58

Grumbel

4,729

4

This will only deactivate it for the nano editor.. Don't be surprised if files with that ending will still be created - by other applications. – alfonx Oct 16 '11 at 14:59
so how do I disable it systemwide? – Oct 16 '11 at 15:09
Why do you want to disable it systemwide? It seems like a good practice to me. – bbaja42 Oct 16 '11 at 15:22
it doesn't function correctly anyways. Right now index.php~ and index.php have same content - even though I edited out the main file. – Oct 16 '11 at 16:32

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 11 '13 at 01:26

If you use GEdit (Ubuntu's default non-terminal text editor, and usually just shows up as named Text Editor), by default it also creates such backup files. To disable them, open the Tools > Preferences menu, switch to the Editor tab, and uncheck the "Create a backup copy of files before saving" checkbox.

what are hidden files ending with ~?

2 Answers2