cleartool

These options apply to interactive mode:

• –e causes cleartool to exit upon encountering an error.
• –status returns the status (0 or 1) of each cleartool subcommand executed.

Command options may be displayed in any order, but all options must precede any nonoption arguments (typically, names of files, versions, branches, and so on). If an option is followed by an additional argument, such as –branch /main/bugfix, there must be white space between the option string and the argument. If the argument itself includes space characters, it must be enclosed in quotes.

If a nonoption argument begins with a hyphen (–) character, you may need to precede it with a double-hyphen argument, to prevent it from being interpreted as an option:

cleartool rmtype -lbtype -- -temporary_label-

Many subcommand names and option words can be abbreviated. A subcommand's syntax summary indicates all valid abbreviations. For example:

–pre/decessor

The position of the forward slash (/ ) indicates that you can abbreviate the option to –pre, or to any intermediate spelling: –pred, –prede, and so on.

For option words, the minimal abbreviation is always three characters or fewer.

A few cleartool commands have a built-in command alias. For example, the alias for checkin is ci; the alias for checkout is co. These commands are equivalent:

Slashes (/) and backslashes (\) can be used interchangeably in pathnames in cleartool commands. For example, the following command is valid on a Windows host:

To specify a file system object as an argument, you can use either a full or relative path name. In many cases, you can also use these variants: a view-extended path name (full or relative) or a version-extended path name (full or relative).

On UNIX and Linux systems, a full path name begins with a slash. For example:

On Windows systems, a full path name begins with an optional drive letter and a backslash. For example:

On UNIX and Linux systems, a relative pathname does not begin with a slash or an implied slash (for example, ~user). For example:

On Windows systems, a relative path name does not begin with a backslash. For example:

For both full and relative path names:

• The standard operating system path name of an element implicitly references the version selected by the current view.
• A view-extended path name references the version of the element selected by the specified view.
• A version-extended path name directly references a particular version in an element's version tree.

For more information, see the version_selector and pathnames_ccase reference pages.

In cleartool commands, you specify non-file-system VOB objects (VOBs, types, pools, hyperlinks, policies, rolemaps, and replicas) with object selectors.

Object selectors identify non-file-system VOB objects with a single string:

[prefix:]name[@vob-selector]

where

prefix

Identifies the kind of object. The prefix is optional if the context of the command implies the kind of object. For example,

cleartool mkbrtype brtype:v3_bugfix

is equivalent to '

cleartool mkbrtype v3_bugfix

If a context does not imply any particular kind of object, cleartool assumes that a name argument with no prefix is a path name. For example, the command cleartool describe ddft describes a file system object named ddft, but cleartool describe pool:ddft describes the ddft pool.

If the name of a file system object looks like a prefix:name argument, you must use the –pname option to identify it. (In the mkhlink command, the options –fpname and –tpname serve the same function.) For example, to describe a file named lbtype:L, enter this command:

cleartool describe –pname lbtype:L

name

The name of the object. See the section Object names for the rules about composing names.

vob-selector

VOB specifier. The default is the current working directory, unless the reference page specifies otherwise. Specify vob-selector in the form [vob:]pname-in-vob (for some commands, the vob: prefix is required; this is noted in the reference page)

pname-in-vob

Path name of the VOB tag (whether or not the VOB is mounted) or of any file system object within the VOB (if the VOB is mounted)

In object-creation commands, you must compose the object name according to these rules:

• It must contain only letters, digits, and the special characters underscore (_), period (.), and hyphen (-). A hyphen cannot be used as the first character of a name.
• It must not be an integer.
• It must not be one of the special names “ . “, “ .. “, or “ ... “.

cleartool supports object names of up to 1024 bytes in length, although Windows imposes a limit of 260 bytes on object names. Consult your operating system documentation for more information about the maximum length of object names; keep in mind that in a multiplatform environment, object names should conform to the rules of the most restrictive platform.

In single-command mode, the cleartool command you enter is processed first by the Windows command interpreter and C run-time library, then by cleartool:

1. The standard command interpreter, cmd.exe, expands environment variables, but does no special processing for file name patterns, quotes, or other special characters (including the asterisk (*) and question mark (?) characters, which are expanded by individual commands).
2. The C run-time library does interpret quotes, stripping each pair and passing its contents through to cleartool as a single argument. (To pass a quote character through to cleartool, escape it with the backslash ( \ ).)
3. cleartool processes the resulting argument list directly, without any further interpretation.

Some third-party shells perform additional command-line processing before passing the argument list through to cleartool. All descriptions and examples of cleartool command usage assume the standard cmd.exe interpreter.

In interactive mode, cleartool itself interprets the command line; it recognizes various special characters and constructs:

In interactive mode, cleartool does not expand environment variables.