New Purge Options

Weather Message Net Beta 4 contains changes to enable more control over the file / product purging process. You have two global settings "purge time in hours" and "product count".

These two global options work together. Setting "purge time" works just like it has in the past. If you set the purge time to 24 hours, the program will keep products on file for 24 hours after they expire. The new global "product count" option modifies the operation of "purge time". Setting a product count greater than zero indicates that you want to keep the specified count of products on file at all times. For example: Purge time 24 hours, product count 2 - means that you always want to keep unexpired products for 24 hours, however when it is time to delete the expired products, always keep the last two received.

You can also specify purge options by product. This works for graphics and text products. Enter a product identifer - wildcards (? or *) are acceptable. Enter the number of hours for this product and/or product count. For example: Enter RWRAL, 0 hours, 2 count - this would indicate that you always want to keep the last two RWRAL products regardless of expiration time.

Product purging give you three options:
hours > 0 and count = 0
This purges the product based on the expiration time.

hours > 0 and count > 0
This purges the product based on expiration time and product count. The program favors the hours parameter first. That is it will always keep a product until the hours elapses, then it will honor the count setting.

hours = 0 and count > 0
This purges the product based on the count of products. If you set the count to 2 and 4 product have been received in the last 30 minutes, the purge cycle will keep the last 2 product received and the previously received products will be deleted.

Note: Weather Message purges products every 30 minutes. (I have not received a request to make this a user definable option....yet)

Pressing control-u on the Weather Message Server window will force a purge cycle. This will allow you evaluate changes maked to the purge options.