Changing an element’s type

You can use chtype to convert an element from one type to another (for example, from file to text_file). An object's type determines how it is stored in the VOB and what type manager is used to construct versions of the element. For example, versions of an element of type file are stored in separate data containers in a VOB source pool. Converting the element to type text_file causes all its versions to be stored in a single data container, as a set of deltas (version-to-version differences), which saves disk space (at the small cost of having the type manager construct a version when it is needed).