How to delete records?¶

Records can be deleted with record.delete(), which will permanently remove them from your database.

When it comes to records of Artifact and Collection, they are “moved into trash” when you first call record.delete().

Trashed records are invisible in the UI and excluded from the query results, see visibility faq.
If a record is already in the trash or permanent=True is passed, calling record.delete() triggers permanent delete.

# !pip install lamindb
!lamin init --storage test-delete

→ connected lamindb: testuser1/test-delete

import lamindb as ln
import pandas as pd

→ connected lamindb: testuser1/test-delete

artifact = ln.Artifact.from_df(
    pd.DataFrame({"a": [1, 2], "b": [3, 4]}), description="mydf"
)
artifact.save()

! no run & transform got linked, call `ln.track()` & re-run

Artifact(uid='g4QLedwVafMqZO9x0000', is_latest=True, description='mydf', suffix='.parquet', type='dataset', size=2054, hash='HesrmwkODFQaQpPQYsXffg', _hash_type='md5', _accessor='DataFrame', visibility=1, _key_is_virtual=True, storage_id=1, created_by_id=1, created_at=2024-12-20 15:03:24 UTC)

ln.Artifact.df()

	uid	key	description	suffix	type	size	hash	n_objects	n_observations	_hash_type	_accessor	visibility	_key_is_virtual	storage_id	transform_id	version	is_latest	run_id	created_at	created_by_id
id
1	g4QLedwVafMqZO9x0000	None	mydf	.parquet	dataset	2054	HesrmwkODFQaQpPQYsXffg	None	None	md5	DataFrame	1	True	1	None	None	True	None	2024-12-20 15:03:24.015428+00:00	1

Trash an artifact¶

artifact.delete()

→ moved artifact to trash (visibility = -1)

No longer visible:

ln.Artifact.df()

	uid	id	key	description	suffix	type	size	hash	n_objects	n_observations	_hash_type	_accessor	visibility	_key_is_virtual	storage_id	transform_id	version	is_latest	run_id	created_at	created_by_id

But the artifact still exists in the database and in storage, you can find it by passing None to the visibility filter:

ln.Artifact.filter(visibility=None).df()

	uid	key	description	suffix	type	size	hash	n_objects	n_observations	_hash_type	_accessor	visibility	_key_is_virtual	storage_id	transform_id	version	is_latest	run_id	created_at	created_by_id
id
1	g4QLedwVafMqZO9x0000	None	mydf	.parquet	dataset	2054	HesrmwkODFQaQpPQYsXffg	None	None	md5	DataFrame	-1	True	1	None	None	True	None	2024-12-20 15:03:24.015428+00:00	1

You can restore an artifact from trash:

artifact.restore()
ln.Artifact.df()

	uid	key	description	suffix	type	size	hash	n_objects	n_observations	_hash_type	_accessor	visibility	_key_is_virtual	storage_id	transform_id	version	is_latest	run_id	created_at	created_by_id
id
1	g4QLedwVafMqZO9x0000	None	mydf	.parquet	dataset	2054	HesrmwkODFQaQpPQYsXffg	None	None	md5	DataFrame	1	True	1	None	None	True	None	2024-12-20 15:03:24.015428+00:00	1

ln.Storage.df()

	uid	root	description	type	region	instance_uid	run_id	created_at	created_by_id
id
1	3haAi2B7iNOa	/home/runner/work/lamindb/lamindb/docs/faq/tes...	None	local	None	4Kf3utIIfnlJ	None	2024-12-20 15:03:20.383108+00:00	1

Permanent delete¶

Calling artifact.delete on a trashed artifact triggers a permanent delete dialog. You can pass permanent=True to auto-confirm the deletion.

artifact.delete(permanent=True)

Now its gone in the database:

ln.Artifact.filter(visibility=None).df()

	uid	id	key	description	suffix	type	size	hash	n_objects	n_observations	_hash_type	_accessor	visibility	_key_is_virtual	storage_id	transform_id	version	is_latest	run_id	created_at	created_by_id

!lamin delete --force test-delete

• deleting instance testuser1/test-delete