ARCHIVED: In Emacs or Pico, what should I do if a huge chunk of my document disappears while I'm editing?
You may have mistakenly entered the command to kill the region
(C-w
in Emacs or Ctrl-k
in
Pico). This command is used to delete a large portion of
a document, usually by setting a mark, moving the cursor to another
spot, then using the command to kill all the text in between the
spot you marked and the spot you're now on.
In Pico, you can usually tell when you're marking text, because the marked text is highlighted, but Emacs often gives no indication that a mark has been set.
Note: Normally in Pico, Ctrl-k
deletes
only the current line, but it will delete a whole region if you have
set a mark.
Recovering text in Emacs
To get the text back in Emacs, type C-y
. If that
doesn't work, try typing C-x u
. You might have to
type this command several times. Watch carefully so that you can stop
as soon as you get back the text that you want.
Note: If you aren't sure how to enter these commands in Emacs, see How keystrokes are denoted in Emacs
Recovering text in Pico
To get the text back in Pico, type Ctrl-u
. If
that doesn't work the first time, try typing
Ctrl-u
several more times, watching carefully to
see when the command gets back the text that you want.
At Indiana University, for personal or departmental Linux or Unix systems support, see Get help for Linux or Unix at IU.
Related documents
This is document abjc in the Knowledge Base.
Last modified on 2018-01-18 10:52:29.