Safety, purge and undo

RomSieve handles collections of several terabytes. It is designed so that a wrong setting can always be corrected.

What RomSieve never does

• A simulation writes nothing, anywhere.
• The source is never modified in Copy, Hard link, Symlink and ZIP modes. In Move mode, only the kept and non-conforming files leave it; excluded files and duplicates stay, and inspected archives are never moved.
• The destination can neither be the source, nor contain it, nor (with a recursive scan) lie inside it: the sorted files would be analyzed again, and a purge would empty the source. RomSieve refuses these folders, also when a symbolic link or a junction leads from one to the other: the paths are compared as written, then with their links resolved. Mapped network drives and bind mounts are not resolved.
• Nothing is written outside the destination. A file name read from an archive or a DAT that is an absolute path (C:/…, /home/…), holds a .. segment or a null character could write anywhere on the disk, which some archives found on the Internet are crafted to do. Such a file is in error from the simulation on, with the reason "Not written: the name … is unsafe or invalid", and nothing is written for it nor for the other files of its game; the other files are sorted as usual. Every target is checked once more just before it is written.
• A purge deletes nothing (see below).
• An interrupted sort leaves no partial file: Stop (the Simulate (Dry-Run) button while a run is in progress) removes the file being written, even in the middle of a large copy. A file is written under a temporary name (<name>.<id>.romsieve-tmp) and only takes its own name once complete: a crash or a power cut leaves at most this temporary file, which an analysis skips and a later sort removes when it writes the same file (an hour later at least). Closing RomSieve during a sort asks for a confirmation, stops the sort and closes once it has stopped; during an undo, RomSieve closes at its end.
• A failed transfer leaves no partial file either: when a network share goes away or a file is locked, the file being written is removed, the file is marked in error and the log gives the message, and the sort goes on with the next files. A game whose files could not all be written is in error as a whole. In Move mode, a file stays in the source until its copy is complete and written to the disk itself, beyond the caches of the system (a power cut or a disk unplugged right after the sort loses nothing); an undo puts a moved file back the same way. The copy is never removed once the source is gone. Undo Last Sort removes what the sort did write.
• A sort stops when going on would do harm, and says why in a message: when the destination is full (every next file would fail as well), and when the operation journal cannot be written (what follows could not be undone; a sort never starts without its journal). The files not transferred stay in the source, in error with the reason "Not sorted: the sort stopped before this file".
• Undo never overwrites a file at its original place, and never deletes a file modified since the sort.

Purging a non-empty destination

If the destination already holds files and Add to a non-empty destination is unchecked, RomSieve offers to purge it before the sort:

• the previous content is moved into _purged/<date>/ inside the destination. On the same disk, this is instant and takes no extra space;
• nothing is deleted: Undo Last Sort puts this content back;
• to free the disk space, empty the quarantine once you are satisfied with the result (see below).

The _purged folder of a previous purge is never touched by the next one: each purge has its own dated folder.

The folders and files of the system (System Volume Information, $RECYCLE.BIN, lost+found, .Trash-1000, .DS_Store...) do not count: the root of a USB stick or of a memory card that holds only them is an empty destination, and a purge never moves them.

Emptying the quarantine

The quarantine grows with each purge. In the Output step, the Destination frame says what it holds (Quarantine of the purges (_purged): 3 purge(s), 1245 file(s), 12.40 GB.) and offers Empty the quarantine…. The line is there as soon as a destination is chosen: with nothing set aside yet, it says Quarantine of the purges (_purged): empty. and its button stays greyed. Once confirmed, its content is deleted for good: this is the only deletion of RomSieve.

• Undoing the sorts that purged this content can no longer put it back: the undo does the rest and reports the missing items.
• The sorted files are never touched, and a link kept in the quarantine is deleted without touching its target.
• Only the quarantine of a destination marked by RomSieve is shown and emptied: the _purged folder of a folder without the marker is an ordinary folder.

On the command line: romsieve-cli quarantine shows it, romsieve-cli quarantine --empty --yes empties it.

The .romsieve marker

Each real sort leaves a hidden file named .romsieve at the root of its destination. When you ask to purge a folder without this marker (for instance a folder chosen by mistake, or a folder sorted by another tool), a second confirmation, Directory Not Created by RomSieve, makes sure you picked the right folder. On the command line, such a purge also requires --force-foreign-purge.

A destination that only holds the marker and _purged counts as empty. When a former destination is later used as a source, its _purged folder is ignored.

Undoing a sort

Every real sort writes a journal of the operations it performed (see where RomSieve stores its files). Undo Last Sort reads the journal of the last sort that has not been undone yet, shows what will be undone (date, number of operations, mode, folders) and, after your confirmation, reverses it:

Folders left empty are removed. Clicking Undo Last Sort again undoes the sort before, and so on.

Some operations cannot be undone; they are listed in the log and in the final report:

• the target was modified after the sort: it is kept;
• a file already exists at the original place: nothing is overwritten;
• a file overwritten during the sort (with Overwrite conflicts) cannot be restored;
• the target no longer exists.

An operation stopped by an occupied original place or by a read or write error (a file opened by another program) can be retried: the report says so, and the sort is still offered. Close the file or free its place, then click Undo Last Sort again: only the operations left are replayed. The other cases are final.

Undo works from the journal. Do not delete the journals folder if you might want to undo a sort. RomSieve keeps the journals of the last 50 real sorts: an older sort can no longer be undone.