yesterday

Overview ¶

Yesterday prints file names from the dump.

Usage:

yesterday [-c | -C | -d] [-n daysago | -t [[[yy]yy]mm]dd] file...

Yesterday prints the names of the files from the most recent dump. Since dumps are done early in the morning, yesterday's files are really in today's dump. For example, if today is February 11, 2003,

$ yesterday /home/am3/rsc/.profile

prints

/dump/am/2003/0211/home/am3/rsc/.profile

In fact, the implementation is to select the most recent dump in the current year, so the dump selected may not be from today. Yesterday does not guarantee that the string it prints represents an existing file.

By default, yesterday prints the names of the dump files corresponding to the named files. The first set of options changes this behavior.

The -c flag causes yesterday to copy the dump files over the named files.

The -C flag causes yesterday to copy the dump files over the named files only when they differ.

The -d flag causes yesterday to run “diff” to compare the dump files with the named files.

The -n flag causes yesterday to select the dump daysago prior to the current day.

The -t flag causes yesterday to select other day’s dumps, with a format of 1, 2, 4, 6, or 8 digits of the form d, dd, mmdd, yymmdd, or yyyymmdd.

Examples:

See what’s changed in the last week in your profile:

$ yesterday −d −n 7 ~/.profile
diff -c /dump/am/2024/0211/home/mpd/.profile /home/mpd/.profile

Restore your profile from yesterday:

$ yesterday −c ~/.profile
cp /dump/am/2024/0217/home/mpd/.profile /home/mpd/.profile