I had many Apple-double files (._), so I ran: sudo dot_clean --keep=dotbar.
I wanted to see what the command was doing, so I ran the command again with the -v switch: sudo dot_clean -v --keep=dotbar.
I got a lot of output Merging directory xxx (the output included directories for applications that were running when the command was executing).
My question: Is my data safe or should I revert to the last backup?
OS X Yosemite (10.10.5)
If nothing is missing, your data should be okay.
Thanks for your reply. I forgot to mention that I ran dot_clean --keep=dotbar from the root directory: dot_clean --keep=dotbar /
I'll compare the CRC32 of the files in my computer to the CRC32 of the backup files--A simple rsync with --dry-run and --checksum should do the job.
Instead of running the command as sudo from the root directory, I should have first tested the command (verbosely and without sudo) on a small sample of test data.
As far as I know, the command merges the extended attributes stored in the AppleDouble file (._) with the respective native file by replacing any extended attributes associated with the native file with information stored in the AppleDouble file.
I have two questions:
1. Does dot_clean use --keep=dotbar as the default option (meaning dot_clean --keep=dotbar / is the same as dot_clean /)?
2. Why did I get a ton of Merging directory xxx output lines? The directories did not have Apple-double files (._).
Thank you.
Is "sudo dot_clean -v --keep=dotbar /" safe?
