Delete/obliterate feature request

gmagana · Post by **gmagana** » Tue Dec 07, 2004 5:31 pm

Ok, first of all let me get this straight: Obliterate deletes a file and all its history, to the point of non-recovery... Am I right?

If so, then I think there is a weakness in Vault... For example, Visual Studio creates "temp" files in the source control, then deletes them. They have names such as ~abc03495803495.tmp... These files show up in the admin tool's "obliterate" file list. Other files that have been deleted, but once held valuable system source code also show up in that list.

If I go into the admin tool and obliterate the undesired *.tmp (and others) files, I have to be careful every time to not select one of these "deleted but still relevant" files because I may want to pull up an old version of my projects later. Just one mistake in obliterating the wrong file and the old version of the project will be incomplete. This is dangerous, specially because over time, one may forget why a specific source file was deleted, it may have been functionality that was needed in verisons 1-5, but deleted as of version 6.

So my request is that maybe there should be a checkmark for every deleted file ("prevent obliterate") to cause the filename to not even show up in the default obliterate dialog (maybe there should be a default filter on the dialog) if the "prevent obliterate" flag is on. Aside from it being a little annoying to keep skipping the same files over and over, I am almost certain I will eventually overlook one such file. With any luck I will realize this immediately and be able to restore the Vault database!

dan · Post by **dan** » Tue Dec 07, 2004 9:17 pm

Yes, that is how obliterate works.

I'll add your request to the list - thanks for the feature request.

Tri · Post by **Tri** » Sat Feb 19, 2005 11:34 pm

Can you also add a quick temp files selector? Something like "Select all ~sak*.*" files.

dan · Post by **dan** » Sun Feb 20, 2005 2:53 pm

OK - will do.

mlippert · Post by **mlippert** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 2:38 pm

Let me add my vote to a filespec selector for obliterate.

In addition a setting that said only show files/folders deleted in the past N days would be great. In general, if something needs to be obliterated (other than those damn ~*.tmp files) I am going to obliterate it very soon after it was deleted.

Mike

bfinney · Post by **bfinney** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 10:26 am

I've tweaked the request for filtering of obliterate and added a request for obliteration by date.

Thanks for the ideas - keep 'em coming.

Tri · Post by **Tri** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 12:52 pm

Please also think about a generic file selector based on a naming pattern or regex. Example: Projects/CustomerX/myBogusTest/*.*

bfinney · Post by **bfinney** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 1:06 pm

I'm way ahead of you