Should the client automatically back up users configuration files.

[pjbroad]

Users configuration files are important and they sometimes report loosing them. Also, making code changes to the load/save function for configure files is stressful; I did break the code on the main branch recently even if only for a few minutes. Everyone should back up their files but many people do not. Perhaps the client should save copies of files to a "backup" sub-directories. Some options:

• Run during exit from the client, after all the files have been saved.
• Back up on a per day play basis, not the last elapse days.
• Back up complete files, no complex incremental stuff.
• A configuration option sets the number of unique days to hold backups - zero disables.

[gvissers]

The first thing that comes to mind is the question as to how these configuration files are lost. Would us storing a backup help recover the user's files, or would we just be creating an extra directory full of files that also get lost in the same failure? As for the code changes to loading/saving functions: would it be possible to improve upon those? Does the new work on changing to JSON format help in this regard? What config files are we talking about, just el.ini or others as well?

That said, I'm not against saving backups. If we were to do so, I'd argue for:

• non-optional backups. you don't want to deal with people who "accidently" turned this feature off.
• done at some regular interval (not just on exit)
• and storing complete files. Seems simpler. Unless we will be storing a lot of data, I doubt the effect would be noticeable.

Another question is how many backups you want to retain. One? One week's worth? A full-fledged tiered backup scheme with daily/weekly/monthly/yearly backups?

[pjbroad]

All good points. People have reported losing files and as you would expect, can normally not account for what happened. I'd just like to be able to say there's a backup in folder. I don't know how load/save could be strengthened. The binary to JSON change helps remove a couple of issues.

I'd backup all user files. At exist was to avoid having to run a separate process. Keep a number of backups rather than number of days as the client may not be run every day.

This is just a thought currently.