From 0d0f7b84946396b767b9c3a0941761334b7e871f Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: =?UTF-8?q?Th=C3=A9ophane=20Hufschmitt?=
 <theophane.hufschmitt@tweag.io>
Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2023 13:37:49 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] POC: Make `nix store delete --recursive` best effort

Only delete the free paths in the closure rather than trying to delete
everything.
---
 src/libstore/gc.cc      | 4 ++--
 src/nix/store-delete.cc | 2 +-
 2 files changed, 3 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/src/libstore/gc.cc b/src/libstore/gc.cc
index 20720fb99ab6..efa725283d3c 100644
--- a/src/libstore/gc.cc
+++ b/src/libstore/gc.cc
@@ -783,11 +783,11 @@ void LocalStore::collectGarbage(const GCOptions & options, GCResults & results)
 
     /* Either delete all garbage paths, or just the specified
        paths (for gcDeleteSpecific). */
-    if (options.action == GCOptions::gcDeleteSpecific) {
+    if (options.action == GCOptions::gcDeleteSpecific || options.action == GCOptions::gcDeleteDead) {
 
         for (auto & i : options.pathsToDelete) {
             deleteReferrersClosure(i);
-            if (!dead.count(i))
+            if (options.action == GCOptions::gcDeleteSpecific && !dead.count(i))
                 throw Error(
                     "Cannot delete path '%1%' since it is still alive. "
                     "To find out why, use: "
diff --git a/src/nix/store-delete.cc b/src/nix/store-delete.cc
index 6719227dfe70..922cc699fc2a 100644
--- a/src/nix/store-delete.cc
+++ b/src/nix/store-delete.cc
@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ using namespace nix;
 
 struct CmdStoreDelete : StorePathsCommand
 {
-    GCOptions options { .action = GCOptions::gcDeleteSpecific };
+    GCOptions options { .action = GCOptions::gcDeleteDead };
 
     CmdStoreDelete()
     {