G. Branden Robinson
61a16e6983
* Identify NETHACKDIR and HACKDIR as environment variables. * ...and set them italics, not roman. * Set default playground directory name in italics, not roman. * Set command names in italics. * Refer to command operands as such, not as "options". * Use man page cross reference on first occurrence of "nethack" when referring to the command executable as opposed to the overall game. Because some text is commented out (`ig`nored), meaning the "first" occurrence appears twice (what's lexically present vs. what's formatted) do this twice as future-proofing. * Set file names in italics, not roman. Set variable parts of file names in roman. * Refer to "single-user systems" instead of "microcomputers"; the latter is becoming antiquated terminology. * Favor present tense over future. * Tighten wording. * Spell "save files" consistently as two words.
176 lines
4.9 KiB
Plaintext
176 lines
4.9 KiB
Plaintext
.\"DO NOT REMOVE NH_DATESUB .TH RECOVER 6 "Date(%-d %B %Y)" Project(uc)
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.TH RECOVER 6 "26 April 2026" NETHACK
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.\"DO NOT REMOVE NH_DATESUB .ds Nd Date(%Y)
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.ds Nd 2024
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.de NB
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.ds Nb \\$2
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..
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.de NR
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.ds Nr \\$2
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..
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.NB $NHDT-Branch: NetHack-5 $
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.NR $NHDT-Revision: 1.12 $
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.ie \n(.g .ds ^ \(ha
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.el .ds ^ ^
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.\" groff and AT&T-descended troffs use different hyphenation patterns.
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.\" Don't hyphenate the last word on a page or column, or
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.\" before/after last/first 2 characters of a word.
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.ie \n(.g .hy 12
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.el .hy 14
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.ds Na Kenneth Lorber
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.SH NAME
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recover \- recover a NetHack game interrupted by disaster
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.SH SYNOPSIS
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.B recover
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.RB [ \-d
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.IR playground-directory ]
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.I base
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\&.\|.\|.
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.SH DESCRIPTION
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Occasionally, a NetHack game is interrupted by disaster
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when the program or the system crashes.
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Prior to NetHack v3.1, these games were lost because information
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like the player's inventory was kept only in memory.
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Now, all pertinent information can be written out to disk,
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so such games can be recovered at the point of the last level change.
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.PP
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.I Base
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operands tell
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.I recover
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which files to process.
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Each
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.I base
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specifies recovery of a separate game.
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.PP
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The
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.B \-d
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option, which must be the first argument if it appears,
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supplies the directory housing the NetHack playground.
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It overrides the value of the environment variables
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.I NETHACKDIR
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and
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.IR HACKDIR ,
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and the directory
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specified by the game administrator during compilation
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(usually
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.IR /usr/games/lib/nethackdir ).
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.ig
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.PP
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\*^?ALLDOCS
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For recovery to be possible,
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.IR nethack (6)
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must have been compiled with the INSURANCE option, and the run-time option
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.I checkpoint
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must also have been on.
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\*^:
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\*^?INSURANCE
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For recovery to be possible,
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.I nethack
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must have been compiled with the INSURANCE option (this configuration was),
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and the run-time option
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.I checkpoint
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must also have been on.
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\*^:
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This configuration of
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.I nethack
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was created without support for recovery.
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\*^.
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\*^.
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..
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.IR nethack (6)
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normally writes out files for levels as the player leaves them,
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so they will be ready for return visits.
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When checkpointing, it also writes out the level entered and
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the current game state on every level change.
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This procedure slows level changes.
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.PP
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The level file names are of the form
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.IR base. nn, where
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.I nn
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is an internal bookkeeping number for the level.
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The file
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.I base.0
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is used for game identity, locking, and, when checkpointing,
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for the game state.
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Various OSes use different strategies for constructing the base name.
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Single-user systems use the character name,
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possibly truncated and modified
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to be a legal filename on that system.
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Multi-user systems use the (modified) character name prefixed
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by a user number to avoid conflicts,
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or
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.I xlock
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if the number of concurrent players is being limited.
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It may be necessary to look in the playground to find the correct
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base name of the interrupted game.
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.I recover
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transforms these level files into a save file of the same name that
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.I nethack
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would have used.
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.PP
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Since
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.I recover
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must be able to read and delete files from the playground
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and create files in the save directory,
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it has interesting interactions with game security.
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Giving ordinary players access to
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.I recover
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through setuid or setgid is tantamount to leaving the playground
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world-writable,
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with respect to both cheating and messing up other players.
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For a single-user system, this of course does not change anything,
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so some of these ports install
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.I recover
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by default.
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.PP
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For a multi-user system,
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the game administrator may want to arrange for all
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.I .0
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files in the playground to be fed to
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.I recover
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when the host machine boots,
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and handle game crashes individually.
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If the user population is sufficiently trustworthy,
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.I recover
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can be installed with the same permissions the
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.I nethack
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executable has.
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In either case,
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.I recover
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is easily compiled from the distribution utility directory.
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.SH NOTES
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Like
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.I nethack
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itself,
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.I recover
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will overwrite existing save files of the same name.
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Savefiles created by
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.I recover
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are uncompressed;
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they may be compressed afterwards if desired,
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but even a compression-using
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.I nethack
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will find them in the uncompressed form.
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.SH "SEE ALSO"
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.IR nethack (6)
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.SH BUGS
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.I recover
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makes no attempt to find out if a base name specifies a game in progress.
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If multiple machines share a playground, this would be impossible to
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determine.
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.PP
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.I recover
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should be taught to use the
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.I nethack
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playground locking mechanism to avoid conflicts.
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.SH COPYRIGHT
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.\" All troffs and nroffs support `\(co` except Plan 9 nroff, but Plan 9
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.\" offers no test for special character availability, and its feature
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.\" set too closely resembles DWB 3.3 to test for it. Use a string with
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.\" any nroff-mode formatter not claiming groff compatiblity.
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.ds co \(co
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.if !\n(.g .if n .ds co (C)\" in principle, should be just "c"
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This file is Copyright \*(co \*(Na, \*(Nd for version \*(Nb:\*(Nr.
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NetHack may be freely redistributed.
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See license for details.
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