/ 
ClearCase-SyncTree-0.24
River stage zero No dependents
/ synctree

NAME

synctree - Normalize a tree of files with a tree of ClearCase elements

SYNOPSIS

Run this script with the -help option for usage details. Here are some additional sample usages with explanations:

synctree -ci -sbase /tmp/newcode -dbase /vobs_tps/xxx /tmp/newcode/xxx

Take all files located under /tmp/newcode/xxx, remove the leading "/tmp/newcode", from each of their pathnames, and place the remaining relative paths under "/vobs_tps/xxx". Check in when done.

synctree -cr -yes -sbase /vobs/hpux/bin -dbase /vobs_rel/hpux/bin

Sync all files under "/vobs_rel/hpux/bin" with those in "/vobs/hpux/bin", making sure to preserve their CR's. Suppress interactive prompting.

synctree -sb /A/B -db /X/Y -map /A/B/foo /X/Y/bar /A/B/here /X/Y/there

Take 'foo' from directory /A/B and check it in as 'bar' in /X/Y. Similarly for 'here' and 'there'.

DESCRIPTION

Synctree brings a VOB area into alignment with a specified set of files from a source area. It's analogous in various ways to clearfsimport, citree, and clearexport/clearimport; see the COMPARISONS section below. Synctree is useful if you have a ClearCase tree that must be kept in sync with a CVS tree during a transition period, or for overlaying releases of third-party products upon previous ones, or exporting deliverable DO's from a nightly build to a release VOB while preserving CR's and labels, or similar.

The default operation is to mkelem all files which exist in <src> but not in <dest>, modify any files which exist in both but differ, but not to remove files which are present in <dest> and not in <src>. The -rmname flag will cause this removal to happen as well.

Synctree need not run in a view context but the directory named by the -dbase flag must provide a view context. The branching behavior of any checkouts performed will be governed by that view's config spec. The -dbase directory need not exist, as long as it lies under a mounted VOB tag and in a view context. In other words, synctree can auto-create the destination directory tree.

The list of source files to operate on may be provided with the -flist option or it may come from @ARGV. Any directories encountered on @ARGV will be traversed recursively. If no source-file-list is provided, the directory specified with -sbase is used as the default.

File paths may be given as relative or absolute. Destination paths are determined as follows: all source filenames are first turned into absolute paths if necessary, then the path given with the -sbase parameter is removed and replaced with that of -dbase to produce the destination pathname (but see FILE MAPPING below).

Symbolic links are supported, even on Windows. Note that the text of the link is transported verbatim from source area to dest area; thus relative symlinks may no longer resolve in the destination area.

Consider using the -n flag the first time you use this on a valued VOB, even though nothing irreversible is done (e.g. no rmelem, rmbranch, rmver, rmtype, etc.). And by the same token use -ci and -yes with care.

FILE MAPPING

Synctree has lots of support for remapping filenames. The options can be pretty confusing and thus deserve special treatment here.

Filename mapping is enabled with the -map flag. Without -map, a list of files provided on the command line is interpreted as a set of from files; their to paths are derived via s/^sbase/dbase/ and thus the file basenames do not change. However, in the presence of -map the @ARGV is instead interpreted as a hash alternating from and to names. Thus

synctree -sb /etc -db /vobs_st/etc /etc/passwd /etc/group

would make two files under /vobs_st/etc called passwd and group, whereas

synctree -sb /etc -db /vobs_st/etc -map /etc/passwd /vobs_st/etc/foo

would create one file (/vobs_st/etc/foo) which is a copy of /etc/passwd. Alternatively the mapping may be specified with a literal =>:

synctree -sb /etc -db /vobs_st/etc -map '/etc/passwd => /vobs_st/etc/foo' ...

but note that this must be quoted against shell expansion. The => style is also allowed in files specified via -flist, thus:

synctree -sb /etc -db /vobs_st/etc -flist - << EOF
/etc/passwd => /vobs_st/etc/foo
/etc/group  => /vobs_st/etc/bar
EOF

COMPARISONS

Synctree is comparable to citree and clearfsimport. It is similar to citree but runs on both Windows and UNIX. It has the following advantages over clearfsimport:

  • Synctree works with all ClearCase versions whereas clearfsimport is first supported in CC 4.2.

  • Synctree handles MVFS-MVFS> transfers while preserving CR's whereas clearfsimport treats the source as flat files.

  • Synctree has support for mapping filenames in transit and a -Narrow option for limiting the set of files to transfer.

  • Synctree is built on a published API (ClearCase::SyncTree) which may aid custom tool development in Perl whereas clearfsimport is a command-line interface only.

  • Synctree has support for element retention. I.e. if an element is added in one pass and removed (rmnamed) in a subsequent pass, and if a third pass would make another element of the same name, synctree can optionally (-reuse) make a link to the existing file instead of making a new element that may be considered an "evil twin".

However, unless you need one of the above features the supported, integrated solution (clearfsimport) is generally preferable. And of course all of these features may eventually be supported by clearfsimport.

BUGS

  • Subtraction of symlinks is currently unimplemented (it's just a corner case I haven't gotten to).

  • SyncTree does not transport empty directories, and added/removed directories aren't shown explicitly in the list of operations to be performed. This is a structural artifact.

  • I have not tested SyncTree in snapshot views and would not expect it to work there without modifications.

DEBUGGING

The special flag -/dbg=1 will cause all underlying cleartool commands to be printed as they are run (this is actually a feature of the Argv module on which synctree is built).

AUTHOR

David Boyce <dsb@boyski.com>

COPYRIGHT

Copyright (c) 2000,2001 David Boyce. All rights reserved. This Perl program is free software; you may redistribute and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

STATUS

This is currently ALPHA code and thus I reserve the right to change the UI incompatibly. At some point I'll bump the version suitably and remove this warning, which will constitute an (almost) ironclad promise to leave the interface alone.

PORTING

The guts of this program are in the ClearCase::SyncTree module, which is known to work on Solaris 2.6-7 and Windows NT 4.0SP3-5, and with perl 5.004_04 and 5.6. The synctree wrapper program per se has had only rudimentary testing on Windows but appears to work fine there.

SEE ALSO

perl(1), "perldoc ClearCase::SyncTree"