Agreed. I put that at the top of the wish list page:
http://www.aescrypt.com/wishlist.html
We've had a few issues related to this, but this is perhaps the best example of the problem I've seen yet. It is actually fairly trivial to fix (we just need to change the order in which we open files), but we need somebody to find the time to make the changes to the source code.
If I get a chance to work on it anytime soon, I'll make it a priority to address this one.
Paul
From: Edmund Eyles [mailto:edmund_eyles@hotmail.com] Sent: Thursday, September 08, 2011 2:02 PM To: support@packetizer.com Subject: User's command line error deletes file
Hello,
I have installed AESCrypt on Linux (Ubuntu). I used it to attempt to decrypt a file, where I wanted the output to go to STDOUT (i.e. the terminal window). Unfortunately I omitted to specify the '-' for the output filename, so the command I entered was: aescrypt -do info.txt.aes
AESCrypt correctly gave me the error message that I had not specified the output filename, but it also deleted the encrypted file in the process!
I have checked that this behaviour is repeatable using a test file.
I believe this should be treated as a bug: it is a harsh punishment for minor carelessness to have your data disappear (even if that is entirely in the UNIX tradition!).
I'd like to say thank you for making AESCrypt available - notwithstanding this bug, it is extremely useful and usable, and available for multiple platforms to boot!
Regards, Ed Eyles