YESTERDAY(1)

📦 version 0_git20260208, in alpine 3.24, arch rolling, nixos 26.05, nixpkgs unstable

💅 YESTERDAY(1) — general commands manual, but make it cute

okay bestie, sit down, because this one is genuinely iconic. this is yesterday, from the General Commands Manual section (that's section 1, iykyk). she prints file names from the dump. that's the whole vibe. 🌸

✨ NAME

yesterday — print file names from the dump 🫶

🦋 SYNOPSIS

yesterday [ -cCd ] [ -n daysago ] [ -date ] files ...

like, yes, that's a lot of brackets, but we'll get through it together, no cap.

🎀 DESCRIPTION

yesterday prints the names of the files from the most recent dump. and here's the little plot twist: since dumps are done early in the morning, yesterday's files are really in today's dump. it's giving timezone chaos, honestly. 😭

so, for example — if today is February 11, 2003, then:

yesterday /home/am3/rsc/.profile

prints:

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

and, like, lowkey the implementation is just to select the most recent dump in the current year, so the dump it picks may not actually be from today. yeah. that's the tea. ☕

by default, yesterday prints the names of the dump files corresponding to the named files. the first set of options changes that behavior, so pay attention bestie:

  • -c — copy the dump files over the named files 💅
  • -C — copy the dump files over the named files only when they differ 👀
  • -d — run diff to compare the dump files with the named files 🔥

the date option selects other day's dumps, with a format of 1, 2, 4, 6, or 8 digits of the form d, dd, mmdd, yymmdd, or yyyymmdd. so many digits, so little time. ✨

the -n option selects the dump daysago prior to the current day. math but make it archival. 🧚

⚠️ heads up: yesterday does not guarantee that the string it prints represents an existing file. she's pretty, she's not a fact-checker. 💀

🌈 EXAMPLES

see what's changed in the last week in your profile:

yesterday -d -n 7 ~/.profile

restore your profile from yesterday:

yesterday -c ~/.profile

both absolute slays, honestly. main character energy. 👑

🍓 FILES

  • /dump — by convention, root of the dump file system 📁

⭐ SOURCE

  • /bin/yesterday

that's where she lives. that's her address. 🏠

💜 SEE ALSO

go read those when you're done here, bestie, they're all part of the same friend group. 🫶

🙈 BUGS

it's hard to use this command without singing. 🎤

like. genuinely. you'll type yesterday and your brain will just start playing the song. there's no fix. we've all accepted it. 😭

okay that's the whole page! this was YESTERDAY(1) from the General Commands Manual, and the footer is dated... well, you know how this goes 💖 — that's the source/version and date sign-off, signed off with love, mwah. 🎀✨

bye bestie, go dump responsibly! 🌸🦋💅
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