Deleting all versions of a file

Products

• CA Harvest Software Change Manager - OpenMake Meister
• CA Harvest Software Change Manager

Issue/Introduction

If I want to delete all versions of a file from my repository, and the file can be found in multiple states within my project, how can this be accomplished?

Environment

Harvest Software Change Manager v12.x and higher

Resolution

If you want to eliminate all versions of a file from all data views in your Harvest repository, it can be complicated.  Different versions of the file may have been promoted to different states within the project, and all these versions must be demoted back to the original state to succeed in using “Delete Version” to delete them.  Here is a method that will accomplish this task.

Notes:

• Only works if the item you want to remove is not in the baseline
• Due to “Switch Package” rules, this only works if there are no branch versions (would need to modify the procedure in that case)
• Only works to remove files, not folders
• Only works if the item has not been refactored (renamed, or moved, or a parent path renamed, moved or removed)

The steps to follow are:

1. (if you want to remove, but “keep” the file) In Administrator Tool, create a new state to hold all versions of the item after it has been removed.  You should configure this new state to not have an associated data view.

 

2. In Administrator Tool, ensure you have configured promote and demote processes that sequentially pass through every state, both going up and coming down.  Include a “Demote” process from your first state to the new state created in Step 1.  Also ensure that every state has a “Switch Package” process.  To get a graphical representation of your states and the promote/demote paths available, you can right click on the project name and select “View Project Lifecycle”. 

 

3. In Workbench, find the “itemobjid” of the item you want to remove. 

 

4. Find the names of all packages containing any version of the item you want to remove, and in what state each package is found.  If you right click on the version in the Explorer View and select “History Diagram” it should give you a graphical representation of all versions of this file, and the names of the packages in which those versions can be found: 

5. In Workbench, create a new package in your project’s initial state to contain the versions of the item you want to remove. 

 

6. In the initial state, locate any packages containing versions of the item you want to remove and perform “Switch Package” to move those items to the new package. 

7. Promote to the next state and repeat step 6, until you arrive at the last state in your project 

 

8. After collecting all versions of the file to be removed, demote the package sequentially back down through all the states until you reach the initial state 

9. (if you want to remove, but “keep” the file) From there demote from the initial state to the new “RemovedItems" state.  

 

10. (if you want to delete all versions of the file) select all items in the package, then right click and select “Delete Version” 

Additional Information

More information on the commands used in this procedure can be found here:

• Create Package
• Delete Version
• Demote
• Promote
• Switch Package