Eraser newbie question

[pli]

Hi, experts,

I am in the processing evaluating the eraser for our application to use. Our application would run as service in the local system context and it would invoke the eraser to run. I got couple questions:
1. I saw that eraser won't be able to delete the file if file is locked. Anyway to work around that?
2. Is there any possibility to use eraser as a DLL or using it as a SDK? Didn't see this at the document.
3. I saw that when I submitted the task tothe eraser thru the cmdline, it just added the task and then returned right away. This would trigger another eraser.exe to run. I won't know when the task is completed. Any way to know that?

Thanks in advance for your insight.

 

[DavidHB]

Joel is the real expert here, but the following contribution may be of help.

I am in the processing evaluating the eraser for our application to use. Our application would run as service in the local system context and it would invoke the eraser to run.

As the Eraser Source code is freely available, it might be possible for you to directly invoke the running process which provides the Eraser core. However, there is a firm plan that the next version of Eraser (6.2) will run its core as a service rather than as a process, so you are dealing with a moving target.

1. I saw that Eraser won't be able to delete the file if file is locked. Anyway to work around that?

Eraser has a capability to force the unlocking of files for erasure, but this will of course depend on what is locking the files and whether Eraser, in whatever configuration and from which user account is being run, has the necessary permissions to effect the erasure. Those are normal Windows issues. The workaround is, of course, to close whatever is locking the files; yes, I know that's sometimes easier said than done, and Windows, and some applications, deliberately I'm sure, can make the process hard to automate. And then, of course, there are always those pesky protected system files that nothing can touch (though they typically don't contain private data).

2. Is there any possibility to use Eraser as a DLL or using it as a SDK? Didn't see this at the document.

In theory, yes, because the source code is available. But Eraser is not offered in this form; Joel has too much on his plate working on the user application be able to offer a proper SDK.

3. I saw that when I submitted the task to the eraser thru the cmdline, it just added the task and then returned right away. This would trigger another eraser.exe to run. I won't know when the task is completed. Any way to know that?

Entering 'eraser help' in a run box will get you the list of parameters and switches for the CLI. Unfortunately, the CLI is also a bit of a moving target, and will probably change in future. Even more unfortunately from your point of view, I don't think that Eraser currently returns values when run from the CLI, though I seem to recall a recent user request that it should do so.


David

 

[pli]

Thanks a lot, David. It is very helpful.

>>there is a firm plan that the next version of Eraser (6.2) will run its core as a service rather than as a process, so you are dealing with a moving target

Any idea when this would be planed and when it would be released?

 

[DavidHB]

It's all planned now (you can see the changes planned by going to the Eraser home page and viewing Trac).

When it will be completed is another question; Joel is currently the only programmer and he has many other commitments. I've given up guessing at dates. There will, I believe, be a service release (6.0.10) in the next few weeks, but that will be bug fixes only.

The Eraser downloads page has a link to the track log. There, you can see the details of changes committed. Implementing the Eraser core as a service is probably the single most important (and difficult) change in 6.2; when you see that being implemented, you will know that 6.2 is progressing. Significant changes have already been made to the UI, and there have also been important changes in the organisation and infrastructure of the program; for instance, the most recent 6.1 builds use .NET 4 rather than .NET 3.5.

David

 

[pli]

thanks David for the information.