Residence time1 and 2

HI

I knew the concept of the residencetime1 and 2. It is used for doing the archiving of the WBS/network or object on which the deletion flag is set.

If I set the deletion flag and system will check the RT1 and RT2 for performing the archiving.

In case if I leave these two field empty ( not 0) and set the deletion flag what will happen?

Does the archiving program will archive these object or it will ignore them because there is no RT1 and 2 are set?

I have requirement where I want to retain the data in the DB once it is set with deletion flag.

Thanks

Satya