Using TRUNCATE to free space used by CLOB/BLOB

Question

Hi ,
Can we free the complete space used by a CLOB or BLOB by issuing a TRUNCATE command on the table containg these large objects?

Answer 1

Sorry about my loose terminology - yes I did mean a sparse bundle. Yes if the backup is created on a local disk, it uses ordinary folders. If it is first created over a network, then it creates a sparse bundle. having created the sparse bundle, you can then connect the disk directly for speeding up the initial backup or a major restore, but also connect remotely for routine incremental backups or minor restores.
It sounds like the type of sparse bundle created may depend on circumstances. In my case I am backing up from a laptop onto a partition on my desktop machine running Leopard 10.5.2 and when I grew the partition, although the Time Machine preference pane saw the extra space, when it came to a backup I got an error message saying there was not enough space and reporting the original size. Deleting and starting over again fixed this.
It is possible that in other circumstances a disk attached to a Time Capsule or elsewhere might get a sparse bundle with different parameters.
Incidentally, I tried copying my old backup sparse bundle onto another drive, deleting it and letting Time Machine create a new sparse bundle on my grown partition and copying the contents from the old one into the new one. Time Machine refused to work with it, so I lost my old backups.
What we need is a Time Machine Utility to manipulate these files, copy them, move backups from direct folders to sparse bundles etc. Ideally Apple would produce this, but I would be willing to pay a shareware fee for that.