[ckan-discuss] Complete deletion of a resource

[Sean Hammond]

> *Short version*: Is there a way to fully delete an uploaded resource so
> that even the file cannot be accessed anymore?

I think the answer is pretty much no at the moment, although Nigel is
working on a new version of CKAN's FileStore and I believe this feature
is one of his aims.

> *Long version*: From what I can see (CKAN 2.0), deleting an uploaded
> resource via the web admin (or re-upload the same file) does not delete the
> file. It just makes that the web page of the resource link the new
> resource. But if someone, for a reason or another, has a direct link to the
> file, that person might continue to propagate the "deleted" file.

I think this is correct, yes.

If you can locate the uploaded file in your pairtree storage directory
and delete it, I guess that would get rid of it.

> Obviously, we would prefer a good old 404...

Yes.

> The only option I see is to manually erase the file in
> the DB which is something we would like to avoid because it is obviously a
> risky business to directly manipulate the DB content.

Well you'd erase it from the pairtree storage directory, not the CKAN
SQL database itself.