Deleting files in a revision

[Datatal AB - Jonas Gauffin <jo...@datatal.se>]

Hello

 

I want to delete files from a specific revision, is that possible?

They have been used in earlier versions but not in the current one.

 

Regards,

  Jonas

Re: Deleting files in a revision

[Ryan Schmidt <su...@ryandesign.com>]

On Nov 25, 2005, at 15:53, Datatal AB - Jonas Gauffin wrote:
> I want to delete files from a specific revision, is that possible?
>
> They have been used in earlier versions but not in the current one.

There may be a terminology misconception and I'm not sure exactly  
what you're asking, so I'll just explain what Subversion can do, and  
you can see if that answers your question.

A Subversion repository as a whole has a revision number. It is  
exactly the number of changes that have been made to the repository.  
Talking about revision 45 of a repository means "What did the  
repository look like after 45 changes had been made in it?"

You can add files:

$ myfilecreator > file.txt
$ svn add file.txt
A         file.txt
$ svn ci -m "Adding file.txt"
Adding         file.txt
Transmitting file data .
Committed revision 1.

Now the repository is at revision 1, because 1 change has been made.  
You can modify files:

$ myfilemunger file.txt
$ svn ci -m "Modifying file.txt"
Sending        file.txt
Transmitting file data .
Committed revision 2.

Now the repository is at revision 2. You can delete files:

$ svn rm file.txt
D         file.txt
$ svn ci -m "Removing file.txt"
Deleting       file.txt
Committed revision 3.

Now the repository is at revision 3. If somebody now checks out the  
HEAD of the repository they won't get file.txt. It's still in the  
repository in revisions 1 and 2, so it can always still be retrieved  
if necessary.

A repository's job is to never lose data. If you're asking if  
file.txt can be removed from the repository in such a way that it  
doesn't even appear in revisions 1 and 2, then that's contrary to the  
purpose of a repository, and is therefore rather difficult to do. You  
would have to take the repository offline, dump its contents to a  
text file with svnadmin dump, process the text file to remove  
file.txt by using svndumpfilter, then load the modified text file  
back into a new repository with svnadmin load. Requests have been  
made in the past to add a command tentatively called svnadmin  
obliterate to simplify this task, but no such command exists at this  
time.

Have you read the Subversion book? It does a great job of explaining  
what all Subversion can do and how you can use it.

http://svnbook.red-bean.com/



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