can I delete a bad revision file off the server?

If a user imports 2GB of junk in to my repository, can I remove it by just
deleting one of the revision files on the server? The last time this
happened, I had to do a "dump-filter-load" to strip out the junk, which was
fortuneately all in a single branch.

I'm using a dedicated svnserve with the fsfs file format, and I know that
the Subversion server stores each Revision as a type of individual ZIP file.

I'm assuming I cannot safely delete revision files from the server, though I
thought maybe there was a hack where you can replace a giant file with a
smaller (perhaps empty) file.

What I want to remove is all in one high-level branch, for example
"svnrepo/customerx". This branch will probaly be needed at a later date,
but would then have the right stuff in it.

Basically, a programmer imported a bunch of junk files for a prospective
customer in to our repository. If the prospect works out, they will need to
be in Subversion, but not with the files that were recently imported. The
"dump-filter-load" sequence would also involve me getting up a lot earlier
than normal, lol.

thx
Received on Wed Jan 4 20:59:36 2006