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Clarify docs on deleting generations, including fixing a mistake

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Deleting store info corrected (there is a foot-gun in Nix with
`--delete-generations old`!)

Also a few things are cleaned up based on feedback.

Co-authored-by: Valentin Gagarin <valentin.gagarin@tweag.io>
Co-authored-by: Eelco Dolstra <edolstra@gmail.com>
This commit is contained in:
John Ericson 2023-06-15 22:29:03 -04:00
parent 48fe0ed554
commit 5cc22e3370
2 changed files with 19 additions and 11 deletions
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2
doc/manual/src/command-ref/nix-collect-garbage.md
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@ -57,7 +57,7 @@ These options are for deleting old [profiles] prior to deleting unreachable [sto
Delete all generations of profiles older than the specified amount (except for the generations that were active at that point in time).
*period* is a value such as `30d`, which would mean 30 days.
This is the equivalent of invoking [`nix-env --delete-generations <period>`](@docroot@/command-ref/nix-env/delete-generations.md#generations-days) on each found profile.
This is the equivalent of invoking [`nix-env --delete-generations <period>`](@docroot@/command-ref/nix-env/delete-generations.md#generations-time) on each found profile.
See the documentation of that command for additional information about the *period* argument.
{{#include ./opt-common.md}}

28
doc/manual/src/command-ref/nix-env/delete-generations.md
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@ -20,22 +20,30 @@ This operation deletes the specified generations of the current profile.
- The special value <span id="generations-old">`old`</span>
Delete all generations older than the current one.
Delete all generations except the current one.
- <span id="generations-days">`<days>d`</span>:\
The last *days* days
> **WARNING**
>
> Older *and newer* generations will be deleted by this operation.
>
> One might expect this to just delete older generations than the curent one, but that is only true if the current generation is also the latest.
> Because one can roll back to a previous generation, it is possible to have generations newer than the current one.
> They will also be deleted.
- <span id="generations-time">`<number>d`</span>:\
The last *number* days
*Example*: `30d`
Delete all generations older than *days* days.
The generation that was active at that point in time is excluded, and will not be deleted.
Delete all generations created more than *number* days ago, except the most recent one of them.
This allows rolling back to generations that were available within the specified period.
- <span id="generations-count">`+<count>`</span>:\
The last *count* generations up to the present
- <span id="generations-count">`+<number>`</span>:\
The last *number* generations up to the present
*Example*: `+5`
Keep the last *count* generations, along with any newer than current.
Keep the last *number* generations, along with any newer than current.
Periodically deleting old generations is important to make garbage collection
effective.
@ -61,7 +69,7 @@ $ nix-env --delete-generations 3 4 8
Delete the generations numbered 3, 4, and 8, so long as the current active generation is not any of those.
## Keep most-recent by count count
## Keep most-recent by count (number of generations)
```console
$ nix-env --delete-generations +5
@ -72,7 +80,7 @@ Suppose `30` is the current generation, and we currently have generations number
Then this command will delete generations `20` through `25` (`<= 30 - 5`),
and keep generations `26` through `31` (`> 30 - 5`).
## Keep most-recent in days
## Keep most-recent by time (number of days)
```console
$ nix-env --delete-generations 30d