How to delete records?#

Registry records can be deleted with record.delete(), which will permanently remove them from your database.

When it comes to records of File and Dataset, they are “moved into trash” when you first call record.delete().

Trashed records are invisible in the UI and excluded from the query results, see visibility faq.
If a record is already in the trash or permanent=True is passed, calling record.delete() triggers permanent delete.
During permanent deletion of a record, its file in storage is also deleted unless it has a semantic key.

Setup#

!lamin init --storage test-delete

✅ saved: User(uid='DzTjkKse', handle='testuser1', name='Test User1', updated_at=2023-12-08 11:32:56 UTC)
✅ saved: Storage(uid='owCZndl3', root='/home/runner/work/lamindb/lamindb/docs/faq/test-delete', type='local', updated_at=2023-12-08 11:32:56 UTC, created_by_id=1)
💡 loaded instance: testuser1/test-delete
💡 did not register local instance on hub

import lamindb as ln
import pandas as pd

💡 lamindb instance: testuser1/test-delete

file = ln.File(pd.DataFrame({"a": [1, 2], "b": [3, 4]}), description="mydf")
file.save()

❗ no run & transform get linked, consider passing a `run` or calling ln.track()

ln.File.filter().df()

	uid	storage_id	key	suffix	accessor	description	version	size	hash	hash_type	transform_id	run_id	initial_version_id	visibility	key_is_virtual	updated_at	created_by_id
id
1	heBmDcUZSbbsRR6dMz2r	1	None	.parquet	DataFrame	mydf	None	2240	AdqYk9VZLVMTdfmjwkra9A	md5	None	None	None	1	True	2023-12-08 11:32:58.003084+00:00	1

Trash a file#

file.delete()

❗ moved file to trash

No longer visible:

ln.File.filter().df()

	uid	key	suffix	accessor	description	version	size	hash	hash_type	visibility	key_is_virtual	updated_at	storage_id	transform_id	run_id	initial_version_id	created_by_id
id

But the file still exists in the database, you can find it by not filtering for visibility:

ln.File.filter(visibility=None).df()

	uid	storage_id	key	suffix	accessor	description	version	size	hash	hash_type	transform_id	run_id	initial_version_id	visibility	key_is_virtual	updated_at	created_by_id
id
1	heBmDcUZSbbsRR6dMz2r	1	None	.parquet	DataFrame	mydf	None	2240	AdqYk9VZLVMTdfmjwkra9A	md5	None	None	None	-1	True	2023-12-08 11:32:58.040169+00:00	1

You can restore a file from trash:

file.restore()

ln.File.filter().df()

	uid	storage_id	key	suffix	accessor	description	version	size	hash	hash_type	transform_id	run_id	initial_version_id	visibility	key_is_virtual	updated_at	created_by_id
id
1	heBmDcUZSbbsRR6dMz2r	1	None	.parquet	DataFrame	mydf	None	2240	AdqYk9VZLVMTdfmjwkra9A	md5	None	None	None	1	True	2023-12-08 11:32:58.088727+00:00	1

Permanent delete#

Calling file.delete on a trashed file triggers a permanent delete dialog. You can pass permanent=True to auto-confirm the deletion.

file.delete(permanent=True)

Now its gone in the database:

ln.File.filter(visibility=None).df()

	uid	key	suffix	accessor	description	version	size	hash	hash_type	visibility	key_is_virtual	updated_at	storage_id	transform_id	run_id	initial_version_id	created_by_id
id