XCode - Any way to recover code after "Discard Changes"?

Question

I inadvertantly did a very stupid thing last night. I have been working on an iPad project for a couple of months and (even more stupidly) do not have a backup. By right-clicking on the project in XCODE, I mistakenly clicked "Discard Changes"

(stupidity reigns again) I did not have any commits since the initial and when I did the Discard Changes, it seems that it went all the way back to the initial commit, which if I am looking at things correctly looks like each file is as it was the very first time it was saved.

My question is: Is there a way to recover my work? Is it in the .git directory? Is a copy stored elsewhere? or as a last resort, any chance to recover some of the source text with an un-delete utility?

Thanks,

Bob

Answer 1

Answer copied from How to undo xcode discard all changes if not committed

Quit Xcode. Open the file you wish to bring back your lost changes to using TextEdit. Go to File -> Revert To -> Browse All Versions... Scroll through the available versions. Hopefully you will have many available to choose from. Select a version and hit Restore. Follow 1-5 for all necessary files. Launch Xcode. You should now see the M next to these files in Project Navigator indicating they include uncommited changes (the changes you previously discarded). Completely new files you may have created and were discarded can be found in the Trash.

Also a small piece of advice. If you are in need to discard changes, prefer using Source Control -> Discard Changes by right clicking on files in the Project Navigator, instead of Discard All Changes which might give you all kinds of trouble.

Have a nice day. :)

Answer 2

For little clarification.. one can put back files from the trash as discard changes sends the file in the trash

Answer 3

Well luck was on my side after all. As it turns out, when I did the Source Control > Discard Changes operation, it did not make any changes to the source code save in my project directory. I was able to start a new project and added the files back in. Once I did that I was able to compile and run my project in the simulator just as it was before the incident. I now have a backup as well as committed the changes in git.

Answer 4

If you're on Lion or later, you may have Time Machine backups even if you don't have an external drive. As of Lion, Time Machine will take 'local snapshots' of files; this is how they support the "Versions" feature that lets you go back to previous versions of your files.

If you didn't have Time Machine turned on, though... you may be out of luck.

Answer 5

You have a hope of fetching this code if you "pushed" & committed your prior-to-discarded changes into your local git repository. Or if you're using MacOS's included Time Machine or some other automated backup solution.

Aside from that, you might be hosed.