What does '~' at the end of file name mean

Question

Im having a very odd problem. Im trying to install a Python program.

Im using python setup.py install

The setup.py file states:

install_requires=[
    "Pylons==0.9.7",

The setup.py~ file states:

install_requires=[
    "Pylons==0.10",

This is causing an issue when Im trying to install as the program tries to find Pylons 0.9.7 and install it as a dependency. It then errors with:

error: Installed distribution Pylons 0.9.7 conflicts with requirement Pylons==0.10

My question is what does having the tilde '~' at the end of the file mean? As far as I was aware, it meant that the file is open and being edited somewhere and this is a temp version, is that not correct?

Answer 1

It's a backup file -- many editors save the previous version of your file under the same name with a ~ appended.