What are the differences between a snapshot view and a dynamic view?
I have seen in ClearCase that there is a Snapshot view and a Dynamic view. What are the differences between these types of views (I'm assuming there are only two types of views) and when are the appropriate times to use them?
Answer
Snapshot views are based on the local filesystem (like a workspace in Subversion):
- you load files anywhere you want on your hard drive
- you have to '
cleartool update' to refresh its content
Dynamic views are based on network content: they represent the dynamic (as in "always refreshed") view of a network content (the remote VOB versions selected by the config spec)
- you access them only through the "dynamic view" mount point (
M:\on Windows or/viewon Unix: it is a MVFS mount point: MultiVersion Filesystem) - you don't have to refresh them
See the second part of this SO answer for a discussion on when to use dynamic views vs. snapshot.
I often use them (the dynamic views) in addition of snapshot views, meaning it is a great tool to just "see" the files (you can for example use a dynamic view to tweak its config spec until you see what you want and then copy those select rules into your usual snapshot view)