Removing file history from repository

[John Arbash Meinel]

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Enrique Ramirez wrote:
> Hi, I was wondering if there's a way to remove all the versioning
> information of a file in the repository. It seems that by mistake I've
> been versioning some temporary binary files that can get pretty big
> (well in relation to the rest of the repository, anyway). I did a bzr
> remove on them already, but I'm guessing the older revisions would
> still have the tracking information on these files. Tried checking bzr
> help remove but I didn't see any mention of this possibility.
> 
> // --------------------------------------
> Enrique Ramirez Irizarry
> Lead Developer
> Indie Code Labs
> http://www.indiecodelabs.com
> 
> 

It is not directly possible to change the committed history of a branch.
(in your case that is going back and saying that these files really
shouldn't be there).

It *should* be possible to create a new branch with completely new
history that is very similar to your existing branch, but doesn't have
those files. This would be done using the "bzr-rebase" plugin. Though
I'll admit I'm not 100% sure if it supports rebasing/replay with a file
filter. (It should be possible, but I don't know that it has been
implemented. Another possibility would be to "bzr fast-export" the
history, edit that stream, and then "bzr fast-import" it.)

The downside of this, is that it would mean branches *based* on this
branch would no longer be considered "connected", because you
regenerated the history.

John
=:->
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