Why do we have so many record delete files in our /rpt directory?

Question

We recently implemented Primo, and we noticed there are a lot of delete* files in /m1/voyager/xxxdb/rpt. We archive delete.item, deleted.mfhd.marc and deleted.bib.marc at the end of every year and never had this many files before. Why are there so many now?

Answer

The Primo Extract by design will datestamp your delete* files.

When the extract runs, it uses these files to identify records deleted in Voyager so that they can then be processed for deletion in Primo. Once the file is processed, it's datestamped, and the next delete of that record type creates a new delete* file that the next Primo extract will process. This keeps the extract from repeatedly processing the same deleted records.

You can still archive and concatenate the files locally after they've been processed. All of the same data will be there, but will be in a set of files rather than one.

• Article last edited: 08-Oct-2013