I am running the cleartool subcommand diffbl -versions between two baselines. But the output looks different depending on the view I am running the command from. The difference is in the path name of the elements. For example the same file my_filemane located in /vobs/my_component/my_directory/my_subdirectory/ as seen by two views on two streams my_stream_1 and my_stream_2 shows path names:
/vobs/my_component/my_directory/my_subdirectory/my_filename##/main/my_stream_1/1
/vobs/my_component/my_directory/my_subdirectory##main/my_stream_2/my_stream_1/10/my_filename/main/my_stream_1/1
In the fist case its easy to determine the location of the file, is there was no version control, by taking the substring between /vobs/ and ##. Is there any easy way (a cleartool subcommand maybe) to find the same from the second case?
The difference comes from the visibility of the file within the view from which you are doing the diffbl.
Considering the extended pathname from the second path mentions:
main/my_stream_2/my_stream_1/10
, your best move is to redo said diffbl from a view associated with stream1 in order to get a simpler path for that particular file.
But anyway, since that file has no version in stream2, it will always be displayed with a long and complicated extended pathname.
Related
Background
In Clearcase, you can get the graphical version tree of a file by entering the following command in a linux terminal.
ct lsvtree -gra <filename>
This brings up an interface with numerous options to look at the diffs between two versions of a file.
Problem
From the graphical tree interface, I am trying to find if a string exists across any version of the file. This string was lost at some point, and I want to figure where that "somepoint" is.
Question
How can I run a text search across all versions of a file in clearcase?
As I mentioned before (2015), there is no equivalent to a git log -S or -G (pickaxe search) in ClearCase.
That pickaxe search is done (in Git) to point out past revision where a string has been added or removed.
But: you would need to script the equivalent feature for ClearCase.
Since cleartool lsvtree shows you all the version of a given file, you can, starting with the most recent version do a cleartool annotate to see when, and in which version, the line was added.
If that line include your string, then this version would be relevant.
If the most recent version does not include your string, then repeat the process with the previous version (do a cleartool annotate on that previous version, if it includes your string).
If you use dynamic views, you could take advantage of how it accesses element versions via version-extended naming. using "foo.c##/main/branch/1" as an example, you have "foo.c##" as the root of a directory structure, with "main" and "branch" being subdirectories, and "1" being a "file"
You can use this by doing the following:
cd to "foo.c##"
Perform your search.
For example:
cd foo.c##
grep -rl "target-string" *
to get the files without the string:
cd foo.c##
grep -rlv "target-string" *
You could also use lsvtree output to power a search in a script, but the above is is the simplest trick to do this. This works on Unix and Windows, but you may want to use something other than the standard Windows "findstr" if your target string contains multiple words, as findstr handles them strangely: findstr "foo bar oof" will print lines that contain "foo", "bar", or "oof", occasionally even when /L for "literal" is used.
If you're using snapshot or web views, this is a lot trickier and will need a script to iterate on the output of lsvtree.
I found out that labels must be applied starting at the VOB if you want to successfully recreate a specific code (label) release. I thought you wouldn't have to start at the VOB name but you do :-(
My VOB has many programs in it. For example:
VOBname\programs\Java\Program1\files...
VOBname\programs\Java\Program2\files...
VOBname\programs\VB\Program1\files...
VOBname\programs\VB\Program2\files...
What I would like to do is have a script or program that takes two parameters, a path and label, and applies that label to the proper directories and files in that path.
It should not apply the label to other, non related, directories (i.e., if I am labeling Java\Program1 it should not also label Java\Program 2.
I also need the reverse - If someone incorrectly applies the label, then I need to remove the label from the path.
It seems like this feature would have been incorporated into the GUI or a script long ago but I don't see one available. Of course, you can do this manually but this takes longer especially if you have a long path.
I know you can label a directory and all contents underneath that directory but if you start at the VOB, that would label everything (what I don't want).
The simplest solution is to:
apply recursively a label from the path
cd /path
cleartool mklabel -replace -recurse LABEL
for a given path, extract the parent folders, and label those:
avob/
avob/aParentFolder
avob/aParentFolder/aParentSubFolder
Depending on your scripting language, extracting the parent folders can be as easy as perl File::Basename
my($filename, $directories, $suffix) = fileparse($path);
# On Unix returns ("baz", "/foo/bar/", "")
fileparse("/foo/bar/baz");
I can compare two files in Winmerge by triggering a comparison on the command line with a command similar to:
WinMergeU C:\file1.txt C:\file2.txt
I can query a list of files with particular properties in clearcase with a clearcase query similar to:
Y:\VOB_A>cleartool find . -type l -exec "cleartool describe -fmt "%n %[slink_text]Tp\n\n\" \"%CLEARCASE_PN%\""
.\Directory\createsymlink.txt -->..\..\VOB_B\SymlinkFolder\createsymlink.txt
What I want is to generate a set of clearcase query results that can then be used as input to winmerge (ie generate a bunch of diff commands on checkins fulfilling a certain criteria like user or day).
How can I write a clearcase query to get a list of file elements (referable in clearcase ie winmerge could open the path to the version on a dynamic view), and get their corresponding previous version of the file?
The bit to format this to winmerge I imagine would look somewhat like this:
... describe -fmt "WinMergeU ...
One, you would need to generate the right full extended pathname for each file (one being the result of your query, one being the previous version of the one found by said query)
Two, you need to do so in a dynamic view (in order to access to any version though the extended path name of the file.
Once your query gives you a version, you can ask, with a cleartool descr -fmt "%PSn" (see fmt_ccase man page), for the previous version and add that to your result file.
Trying to do it all in one pass (find + predecessor version + WinMerge call) seems too complicated.
I know the filename of a clearcase versioned file. How can i find the latest version of this file on a particular branch ? It should not pick any child branches. Also the parent branch names may not be know always.
Thanks.
If you are using a dynamic view, you can directly access the LATEST version of a given branch by using the extended path:
cat file##/main/branch/subbranch/LATEST
If you don't know the exact branch path (parent branches) this version is stored in, you can modify your dynamic view and add first the selection rule
element /path/to/file .../subbranch/LATEST
That will select the LATEST version of subbranch within the dynamic view.
Or you can do a cleartool find, in order to see the full extended path for that file:
cleartool find . -name "yourFile" -ver "version(.../subbranch/LATEST)
You will be able to cat (or type in Windows) directly the result (which will be the full extended path)
The diea behind the cat or the cleartool find is to be able to use the syntax .../subbranch/LATEST.
That syntax with the three dots means: '.../subbranch' whatever branches followed by /subbranch.
In my current working environment, I make use of eclipsed files extensively for testing purposes. When it comes time to formalize things, I have a script which generates a diff by comparing the file with a backup saved by my eclipse script.
I'd like to be able to work without the backup of the original file; is there any way I can retrieve the current version of the file that I can pass to diff? Even though the file is view-private, I see I can enter foo##/ and see a list of versions, but I'm not sure how to find which version is the latest. Everything I've tried using cleartool ls or describe with the file name tells me that it's not a VOB object (which is true, although cleartool ls does show it as eclipsed, so it must know, somehow, that there is an element there)
Thanks
Eclipsed file means dynamic view.
The simplest solution would to make a second dynamic view based on the same config spec.
Considering how cheap and quick those views are, this isn't an issue.
On that second dynamic view, you can do a
cleartool descr -fmt "%Xn" /path/to/element
In order to get the extended pathname of the file (see fmt_ccase for more on the %Xn syntax).