delete_vtr: Logically delete rows from a .vtr file

In vectra: Columnar Query Engine for Larger-than-RAM Data

Logically delete rows from a .vtr file

Description

Marks the specified 0-based physical row indices as deleted by writing (or updating) a tombstone side file (⁠<path>.del⁠). The original .vtr file is never modified. The next call to tbl() on the same path will automatically exclude the deleted rows.

Usage

delete_vtr(path, row_ids)

Arguments

path	File path of the .vtr file to delete rows from.
row_ids	A numeric vector of 0-based physical row indices to delete. Out-of-range indices are silently ignored on read (they will never match a real row).

Details

Tombstone files are cumulative: calling delete_vtr() multiple times on the same file merges all deletions (union, deduplicated). To undo deletions, remove the .del file manually with unlink(paste0(path, ".del")).

Value

Invisible NULL.

Examples

f <- tempfile(fileext = ".vtr")
write_vtr(mtcars, f)

# Delete the first and third rows (0-based indices 0 and 2)
delete_vtr(f, c(0, 2))

result <- tbl(f) |> collect()
stopifnot(nrow(result) == nrow(mtcars) - 2L)

unlink(c(f, paste0(f, ".del")))

vectra documentation built on May 8, 2026, 9:06 a.m.