Delete old versions of contents

Hi,

When ever the dcr contents are modified, it ends up in creating many versions. I am looking for a way, where, as and when a new version of the dcr is created, the rest of the dcr versions (except the latest 10 versions) should get deleted automatically. By this way, only latest 10 version should remain all the times.
Is there a way to do it? Please suggest me some ideas.

Thanks

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Crsb

I don't think there is a known way to delete a specific version of a file. But i can think of this idea (i never tried it before): you might be able to delete a file version if you delete the edition (hidden or published) which references that file version, but this will delete anything referenced in that edition including versions of other files. If you decide to try this (on your own risk), you can go to the file versions, find the version you want to delete and look up the edition corresponding to that version. it usually looks like this #somenumber if it is hidden or ed_somenumber if it is published, then use iwrmed /full_path_to_edition.
again because i haven't tried it, i dont know if it will work or not, the edition might disappear immediately, but i dont know if the file version will immediately be deleted because teamsite might still be doing some cleanup after deleting an edition.

Meena25

Thanks for your response.
But its confusing.
For example, Consider there is one dcr with 10 versions. And I have 20 editions. I haven't cleared any versions yet. So my 20th edition will have all the 10 versions. And the rest 19 may or may not have all the versions. Even if I delete all the 19 editions, I dont think the versions of the dcrs will be deleted.

Adding to it, I want to apply the same logic to the editions too.
Because, we have larger number of editions, we need to delete the older editions, keeping only the latest.

I am searching for an automated way of doing it, instead of manually deleting the versions and editions.

Is it feasible?

Thanks

Adam Stoller

Thanks for your response.
But its confusing.
For example, Consider there is one dcr with 10 versions. And I have 20 editions. I haven't cleared any versions yet. So my 20th edition will have all the 10 versions. And the rest 19 may or may not have all the versions. Even if I delete all the 19 editions, I dont think the versions of the dcrs will be deleted.

Adding to it, I want to apply the same logic to the editions too.
Because, we have larger number of editions, we need to delete the older editions, keeping only the latest.

I am searching for an automated way of doing it, instead of manually deleting the versions and editions.

Is it feasible?

Thanks

If you can manage to get search in the forums to work - you can find some rather detailed explanations of all of this buried within the forums - otherwise you need to do some reading of the manuals and/or get some basic training in TeamSite fundamentals - because you're basing your notions on false premises.

Perhaps it might help if you explain the rationale for this? What are you trying to actually do? Why are you trying to do it?

Meena25

We have hundreds of version of the dcrs. And we will have even more in the future. So I am trying to automate the deletion process of the older versions as and when the new one comes in.

ISCBorisB

We have hundreds of version of the dcrs. And we will have even more in the future. So I am trying to automate the deletion process of the older versions as and when the new one comes in.

You can't. It is that simple. Branch history is stored in STAGING/Editions en masse, not on the File per File basis.

The best you can do is to delete certain Edition(s). That will remove some version of every File that happened
to get changed/submitted in between of this and previous Edition Publishing. It'll do nothing to the history of Files
that did not get submitted in this "between publishing" time interval

nipper

who needs that persky version control anyway ? Sounds like a great idea to delete a few hundred MB of versions to save a few bucks on disk. It is not like you could go to Fry's Electronics and buy a 1 TB disk for $150 or anything

Crsb

who needs ... you could go to Fry's Electronics and buy a 1 TB disk for $150 or anything

who still pays retail price?? 1TB/$79 on Buy.com... Smiley Happy

Meena25

I still need to get rid of those older Editions too. They are too in large number. And I am looking for, to delete those editions automatically, in the same way as the dcr versions. Does customization of JSP's like file_version.jsp or writing a new code for this logic helps?

Adam Stoller

I still need to get rid of those older Editions too. They are too in large number. And I am looking for, to delete those editions automatically, in the same way as the dcr versions. Does customization of JSP's like file_version.jsp or writing a new code for this logic helps?

You think you need to get rid of those older editions - are you sure you actually need to do so?
Are you working in an industry that requires record retention?
Have you considered alternatives? Perhaps archiving your old editions before deleting them?

If you want to automate the deletion of old editions - it's not that difficult to write a script to do so - but you should fully understand what you are doing and why you are doing it.

Frederik

just as an example:

we have an app for intranet news. There are news items, and news overviews. The overviews exist in 70 variations (different audience get a different mix of news items and language combos)

Every 15 minutes of the day, we have a perl process looking at the news items, and building new overviews. All those overviews get submitted, editions published & deployed to front-end. This adds up significantly in disk space (not tera's, but giga's ... and then you add SAN mirroring, and backup durations going up, etc etc. Disk space may be cheap, but total cost and inconvenience is not)

We have added a daily/weekly maintenance process that deletes old editions.... I believe it's after 1 month that all editions except 1 per week, are deleted. That cleans up a lot of DCR (news item) file version and news overview file versions.

So to the original poster: yes, you can delete (to some extent) old versions... but it will always happen in a way that wipes out entire editions (so all versions of all files in those editions, unless the file version is still needed for a remaining edition). It's something to build into the logic of you application, if you expect a lot of unnecessary file versions being submitted.

Meena25

Thanks Frederik. I am looking for a similar thing. We have large number of file versions and editions since years.We want to automate this, which can save time and space in the future. Let me try out with scripts.

Thanks!

Crsb

Thanks Frederik. I am looking for a similar thing. We have large number of file versions and editions since years.We want to automate this, which can save time and space in the future. Let me try out with scripts.

Thanks!

1) if you have data/editions from many years ago and your organization doesn't need frequent access to content history, then it is time for some archiving and cleaning up? split your content store to archive store and active/default store or just delete portion of it assuming you have backup some where in case of you need to go back.

2) again if your organization doesn't need immediate or frequent access to content history, then you can just start deleting editions that are older than certain date (a week, a month...). this can not be done for a specific file or folder, it is a branch level operation so any content changes versioned in the deleted editions will be gone. you can put this in a simple script to look for editions under branch/EDITION, check creation date of an edition and if it matches your condition then delete it using iwrmed CLT.

Meena25

Thanks.
I was looking for something similar to the second option. I do not want the editions to be deleted based on date, but based on the count. Just maintain the latest 10 and delete the rest... The iwattrib CLT fetches the count and sequence number of the editions. And iwrmed CLT deletes the editions. I am working out on this. Hope it works!!!

Crsb

Thanks.
I was looking for something similar to the second option. I do not want the editions to be deleted based on date, but based on the count. Just maintain the latest 10 and delete the rest... The iwattrib CLT fetches the count and sequence number of the editions. And iwrmed CLT deletes the editions. I am working out on this. Hope it works!!!

1) OK, based on count, but when you say "latest 10", then it is also based on date.

2) when you started this thread you said you wanted to keep latest 10 versions of a file, that is different than keeping latest 10 editions of a branch. latest 10 editions will not always have latest 10 versions of all files. if a file was never modified in the last 10 editions, then all its history is in the editions you already deleted. good luck!

ACheethayil

What you can do is to delete the oldest edition when a new edition is created(say keep only 300 editions per branch). So all the time, you will have 300 editions(almost one years data). As the time goes, you may not have version history of the old files.

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Nitish

I have a similar question,

We want to delete old versions which are 5 years or older. BUT, the edition , we have started to keep for last one years only. before that we did not had Edition.

If i follow the concept of deleting the Edtion which are 1 year old, will it remove the Versions which are 5 years older ?

Any help, much appriciated.

Regards,

Nitish