Missing data from settings file and CONFLICT files - information sought

First off: a huge thank you to whoever added the functionality that creates a <character name>_prefs-CONFLICT file in the settings directory when circumstances dictate.

I discovered that my character was missing half of the demon names they had learned. If not for the history preserved in the "CONFLICT" files it would have been a lengthy process to relearn them.

I know that there has been periodic discussion regarding a better way to preserve settings due to instances of corruption in the file.

I'm hoping that someone more familiar with the code would be willing to tell me where the creation of conflict files is handled? I can figure out what it's doing but, without downloading the codebase, I can't seem to find a way to search the code from the github site.

Any assistance is appreciated,

Thank you.

Not sure what is going on here. The string "CONFLICT" only occurs in the code base in connection with SVN options. So it is probably not KoLmafia code that saved you. The feature that creates a backup and possibly restores from it can be attributed to @MCroft if my memory is correct.

My first response to CONFLICT in a file name is to assume the file is managed by some version control system, has local changes and an attempt to merge the remote repository with the local changes (or visa versa) failed because the merge algorithm couldn't figure out what to do. It may also have been created by a file difference tool which was used to view different versions of the file and saved the differences.

If there is a desire to make preferences more robust then the discussion could be revived. It would be nice if someone smarter than me looked at the thread lock that still sometimes occurs in https://github.com/kolmafia/kolmafia/pull/1889 and decided that was safe to push since that PR appears to be more robust.

The "Gold Standard" in my experience for this kind of thing is a database. That could be done but might be overkill and would certainly eliminate a user's ability to view and edit the file without any special tools. That price might be more than anyone wants to pay.

Hmmm.... I do use sync.com, with a local client, to handle backing up my KoLmafia directory structure. That appears to be the source of the "CONFLICT" files.

The creation dates on the files on question seem to cluster around specific dates with most of them dating to mid-October of 2023. I only have four clusters of CONFLICT files so it's not huge issue.

I'm grateful that the CONFLICT files exist as I don't keep regular file backups going back that far and their existence allowed me to recover the learned demon names without pain.

Thank you for the additional information.