ClearCase Package Content Disappearance

[Phil Wilson]

Hi all,

Hope someone can help with this issue.

We're using EA with Oracle for working and ClearCase as the version control tool.

We've seen a problem where the content of files being version controlled in ClearCase are being wiped, leaving only header information, and the EA model responds by moving any version controlled child packages to a root level in the model. There doesn't seem to be a record in ClearCase of the file being modified in the file's version history.

Has anyone seen this problem before, and do you know any issue that could be causing this to happen ? Perhaps there are certain activities we are doing in EA that cause this ClearCase anomaly, or EA anomaly to occur and that should be avoided.

Any help anyone can provide would be greatly appreciated !!!

Thanks,

Phil Wilson

[ChrisBD]

Assuming taht you config spec is set up correctly and your ClearCase view is working.
It sounds to me as if someone is performing an undo checkout.
This will orphan checked out child packages and place them at the root level of the model.

[Phil Wilson]

ChrisBD,

Thanks for your comments.

It's quite possible that an undo-checkout was performed, but how would this then affect the clearcase file ? With no record of the Clearcase file being modifed in it's version history ? Is this something you have seen before ?

Also, with regard to the undo-checkout scenario, under what conditions would this happen ? I could only imagine this would happen if a parent package was checked out, child packages added, and then the undo check-out of the parent was instigated. This is not likely, however, as all of the packages were already in existence and version controlled. Are there steps that a user may have mistakenly taken that would cause what we've seen ?

Thanks,

Phil

[ChrisBD]

I'll admit that I'm not entirely sure here. I can't see any way in which ClearCase itself can lose data without it appearing within the file history.
I can only point you towards problems that can occur. I know that you need to set it so that people can't check out files unreserved. Otherwise, you can have people using ClearCase rather than its interface through EA to check out and check in files, which will cause you a real headache.

You'll also find that an individual users ClearCase View will be applied if you use "Resync with VC Provider", which will overwrite check-in status for everyone.

When a package is checked in it is exported to an XMI file and that XMI file is checked into ClearCase and the opposite when its checked out.
You'll need to make sure that all data is saved from EA otherwise your Oracle database won't necessarily be updated when the check-in is applied.