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I am relatively new to ClearCase, and have spent a decent chunk of my time today trying to get my config spec working smoothly. I keep getting errors with check-outs, check-ins, and merges despite many attempts to fix it...

Our basic working structure is that there is a branch for each phase of the project, and each developer has a working branch. I want to be able to create my branch for any checkout, and once it has been merged back in to use the latest version for that phase. I do not really like it, but that is the way we are supposed to do it.

I have tried the following:

element * CHECKEDOUT
element * .../my_phase1_working_branch/LATEST
element * .../phase_1/LATEST -mkbranch my_phase1_working_branch
element * /main/LATEST

However once I merge files back in, my view will still look at my_phase1_working. As I am supposed to just keep 1 branch for the entire phase I need to constantly manually check and merge the latest changes into my branch, not a reasonable way to operate. If I remove the element * .../my_phase1_working_branch/LATEST then it does not work at all. I have been spending way too much time on this and I am sure there must be a relatively simple solution...

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated!

Sneftel
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kreynolds
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1 Answers1

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and once it has been merged back in to use the latest version for that phase

Then... make a second view, one dedicated to be at the LATEST of that phase.

element * CHECKEDOUT
element * .../phase_1/LATEST
element * /main/LATEST

Trying to keep both development effort (one for phase_1, and one for working_branch) won't be sustainable.

Or... since I don't like one branch per developer, try to work with one or several developers on a common branch representing a coherent development effort for phase_1, instead of artificially isolating each contribution in its own branch (which you have then to merge back and force, a very slow operation in ClearCase).

A branch shouldn't be tied to a "resource" (ie a developer), but should be tied to a task (what I called a "development effort").

Community
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VonC
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  • This is the way we operated on my previous project, a single branch for groups of developers on a single task, I agree that it is a much more natural flow for the work cycle. If anyone needed a special sauce or did not want the latest they just used a working label. – kreynolds Oct 30 '13 at 11:35
  • @Prediluted I agree. One stream per task is a much sensible model, which actually apply to many VCS tools, not just ClearCase. – VonC Oct 30 '13 at 11:37