Manual:deleteArchivedRevisions.php

MediaWiki version:

≥ 1.11

MediaWiki file: deleteArchivedRevisions.php
Location:	maintenance/
Source code:	master • 1.43.0 • 1.42.4 • 1.39.11
Classes:	DeleteArchivedRevisions

Details

deleteArchivedRevisions.php file is a maintenance script to delete all the archived (hidden from public view) revisions, by clearing out the archive table. These revisions will no longer be restorable. Deleted pages and archived revisions to a given page are permanently deleted, but the complete history of existing pages will remain.

When a page is 'deleted' by an administrator (Help:Deletion and undeletion ), records are moved from the revision table to the archive table, although the bulk of the data (page text) remains in the 'text' table. The script deletes all records from the archive table and then invokes purgeOldText.php to purge the text records which no revision links to. This can be useful for reducing the size of the database but it does mean you lose the ability to restore the according revisions.

Prior to MediaWiki 1.16, a helper file deleteArchivedRevisions.inc contained the class that performs the work. This class was merged into deleteArchivedRevisions.php in 1.16.

Warning: This script attempts to remove unused entries from the text table, which can cause potential data loss.

Options/Arguments

Option	Description	Required?
--delete	Does the deletion (otherwise only displays the number of revisions to delete).	Optional

Usage

php maintenance/run.php deleteArchivedRevisions [ --delete ]

In MediaWiki version 1.39.10 and earlier, you must invoke maintenance scripts using php maintenance/scriptName.php instead of php maintenance/run.php scriptName.

Checking potential deletion

Terminal

$ php maintenance/run.php deleteArchivedRevisions

Found 7 revisions to delete.
Please run the script again with the --delete option to really delete the revisions.

Making actual deletion