vrsn: Managing the File Versions

It has been pointed out that ONLINE uses version numbers to save certain files. After some weeks or months /online_dir contains a lot of different file versions. The program vrsn allows you to purge these versions and to reset the numbers. If vrsn is invoked without parameters, it displays what it does:

a1user@hasa1:/home/a1user/temp > vrsn

  Usage: 

    Display all versions:              # vrsn file_name 

    Create a new version:              # vrsn -s file_name

    Purge, keeping nk (def 2):         # vrsn -p [nk] file_name 

    Rename the files, starting from 1: # vrsn -reset file_name

vrsn is not restricted to Online files. The option -s for instance saves any file by creating a new version. However, here we are concerned with cleaning up /online_dir. Let's assume we want to reduce the versions of online.gra:

a1user@hasa1:/home/a1user > cd /online_dir
a1user@hasa1:/online_dir> vrsn -p 5 online.gra
 vrsn-purge: keeping online_00139.gra 
 vrsn-purge: keeping online_00138.gra 
 vrsn-purge: keeping online_00137.gra 
 vrsn-purge: keeping online_00136.gra 
 vrsn-purge: keeping online_00135.gra 
 vrsn-purge: deleting online_00134.gra 
 vrsn-purge: deleting online_00133.gra 
 vrsn-purge: deleting online_00132.gra 
 vrsn-purge: deleting online_00131.gra

All but the last 5 versions of spectra_preserve.dmp are deleted. The maximum version number is 99999. Hence we have to reset it now and then:

a1user@hasa1:/online_dir> vrsn -reset online.gra
 vrsn-reset: renaming online_00135.gra to online_00001.gra
 vrsn-reset: renaming online_00136.gra to online_00002.gra
 vrsn-reset: renaming online_00137.gra to online_00003.gra
 vrsn-reset: renaming online_00138.gra to online_00004.gra
 vrsn-reset: renaming online_00139.gra to online_00005.gra