  DELETE and Large Directories? 
 The Question is:
 
For reasons too complex to go into, we have a directory which is over 21K
blocks long.  Trying to delete the contents with DEL *.*;* has made little
progress in over 2 months.  DECps says we have swamped our quota of
ACP_DIRCACHE and we don't want to exte
nd that parameter.  A BACKUP with /EXCLUDE= of that directory requires too
much downtime.  We decided to try this approach:  We want to do a QIO using
ACP functions knowing the file's ID, SEQUENCE, RVN triplet, which we load to
a File Info Block (FIB).  W
e intend to do the deletes by file ID, then use SET FILE/NODIR on the
directory and delete it (all at once rather than one at a time).  However,
we seem to be unable to do the file access or delete without giving a
directory FID.  If we give a directory F
ID, we will end up having to do a directory update on each delete, which is
exactly why the DEL *.*;* got nowhere in two months.  Can't we simply access
a file by FID and then do a QIO IO$_DELETE + IO$M_DELETE with a null
FIB$W_DID value?  What parameters
 must I supply to the ACP function in order to make this work without
touching the directory?
 
 The Answer is:
 
  Consider an upgrade to OpenVMS V7.2 or later, or consider the use of
  the Freeware DFU, or use one of the various available reverse-delete
  tools.
 
  Also please see topics 1234 and 3621.
 
