CODEWITHSUNDEEP
svnvisualsvn-servervisualsvn
Mahesh kumar Chiliveri
Mahesh kumar Chiliveri

Reputation: 484

How to delete a folder from Visual svn?

I have deleted a set of branches from repository from VisualSVN Server but total size of the repository not decreased after deletion. Is this right way to do it or am I missing something?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 2247

Answers (1)

bahrep
bahrep

Reputation: 30662

VisualSVN Server is based on Apache Subversion. Apache Subversion promises that once data is committed, it is stored in the repository forever. As @ÁlvaroGonzález pointed out in the comment: that's the whole purpose of source control: keep file history. However, there are special cases when you have to remove the data (i.e. purge or obliterate it), see below.

  • Running Delete operation in VisualSVN Server Manager console on a repository subtree has the same result as running svn delete command. You just remove a file, a set of files or subtrees from the latest (HEAD) revision, but the data and its changes history is still in the repository.

    Moreover, it does not make sense to remove branches in case of Subversion. Branches are mostly pointers to the copy-from source they've been branched from. Therefore, they don't really take much space on the server side.

  • Indeed, there are special cases when you have to remove, purge or obliterate some data from the repository. But note that low disk space is not really one of them, especially in enterprise environment, because Subversion repositories take as low space as possible. If your users don't store multigigabyte ISOs or video files, but only source code, removing any data from the repository is not recommended. Increase the disk space instead.

    However, you might be required to purge files with sensitive data, commits with very large files mistakenly committed to the repository, or for repository restructuring purposes. That's why Subversion offers repository filtering and hopefully will start supporting "obliterate" feature that's been requested from the very beginning of Subversion project.

Upvotes: 2

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