[LUCENE-2259] add IndexWriter.removeUnferencedFiles, so apps can more immediately delete index files when readers are closed

• Type: Improvement
• Status: Closed
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Fixed
• Fix Version/s: 4.0-ALPHA
• Component/s: core/index
• Lucene Fields: New
• Assignee: Michael McCandless
• Reporter: Michael McCandless
• Created: 10/Feb/10 15:38
• Updated: 28/Aug/22 12:20
• Resolved: 12/Feb/10 11:07

Description

This has come up several times on the user's list.

On Windows, which prevents deletion of still-open files, IndexWriter cannot remove files that are in-use by open IndexReaders. This is fine, and IndexWriter periodically retries the delete, but it doesn't retry very often (only on open, on flushing a new segment, and on committing a merge). So it lacks immediacy.

With this expert method, apps that want faster deletion can call this method.