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From: garry@TCGOULD.TN.CORNELL.EDU.UUCP
Newsgroups: mod.computers.vax
Subject: Re: $ Directory message: "No such file"
Message-ID: <8611230321.AA09821@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu>
Date: Sat, 22-Nov-86 22:21:36 EST
Article-I.D.: tcgould.8611230321.AA09821
Posted: Sat Nov 22 22:21:36 1986
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In a recent article Philip Taylor said:
>I would like to be able to archive all files in a directory, then delete
>the files themselves while leaving the directory entries.  That way,
>when performing a $ Directory on the archived directory, I would have
>an immediate list of the file names, which would much simplify their
>recovery from archive.  Can anyone tell me how I can achieve this ?

This is slightly bizarre. I'll assume that you're running VMS, and by
"archive" you mean "run the Backup program".  That being the case, if you 
want to keep track of archived files you should use the /JOURNAL switch 
to generate a journal file. Multiple Backup runs can just keep appending to 
the same journal. Then when you want to figure out where the file went, you do:

	$ Backup/journal=My_Journal/list/select=lost.file

And it will list if and when "lost.file" appeared in the journal and which
save set it's a member of.

--------

In answer to the original question, I'm not aware of any single RMS or ACP
operation under VMS that will delete the file but leave the entry. To do
it in two steps involves (at DCL) Delete followed by a Set File/Enter 
pointing to a dummy file, or (at RMS) Sys$Close w/delete followed by a
Sys$Enter.

Be aware that if you do this ANALYZE/DISK will complain bitterly.

garry wiegand   (garry%cadif-oak@cu-arpa.cs.cornell.edu)