How does blob lifecycle management interact with directories in Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2?

Question

My understanding is that in ADLS Gen 2, a directory appears like a 0-byte blob when the container is queried through the blob storage APIs.

However, in ADLS Gen 2 sometimes it is desirable to have a directory be permanent, even if it is never modified, because you can attach ACLs to directories. Imagine a directory got cleaned up by a lifecycle management policy, then you would have to re-create the directory and re-attach the desired ACLs.

However, also in a filesystem like ADLS Gen 2, it may be desirable to automatically clean up empty directories over time.

Therefore, I am curious how management policies interact with directories in ADLS Gen 2. Do lifecycle management policies have special consideration for blobs that are actually directories?

Answer 1

@Brandon Vincent
Lifecycle Management only cleans up empty directories that match the policy defined for the account. There is an open issue to improve our documentation regarding ADLS Gen 2 and lifecycle management. You might be interested in following this to see if further information gets added.

Hope this helps. Let me know if there are still questions you have and we will be happy to help.

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