Purge command doesn't delete units

[davidpelaez]

The recently added purge command won't delete file in /var/lib/containers/units/* this results in that gear purge will stop and disable all containers. However since the unit remains, doing gear start on one of the recently purged containers, results on the container being started and enabled again, similar to gear install. This seems like a strange behavior where start and install are overlapping and the behavior of purge seems to "soft" for it's name.

@smarterclayton do you think it's just an issue of clarification in the docs or indeed a strange functionality collision?

[smarterclayton]

Kind of a halfway place right now - gear clean will automatically gc those items at a certain point, but purge does give the impression it deletes them.

The original idea was that disabled units cost us nothing, so that having them there for administrators to debug gives a but more safety. It's possible we should make purge have the option of triggering a clean for that type, or otherwise running to completion.

[davidpelaez]

OK, so purge is more like a disable/freeze and clean would have the responsibility of removing them.
The flags sounds good, like a soft or hard version of purge based on the command. Probably for safety, the most destructive command should be the one requiring the flag, but I'm not entirely convinced of that because it makes the word 'purge' sound bigger than it is :P

[smarterclayton]

Fair point - got any better suggestions for names?