6.5 Assigning Snapshot Views to Drive Letters

If your makefiles or other files require absolute pathnames with a specific drive letter, assign your view to a drive letter.

Depending on your computer's configuration, two methods are available:

• Make the snapshot view a shared directory and then assign it to a drive letter.

• Use the subst command.

Assign Only the Root Directory. You must assign only the snapshot view's root directory to a drive letter. The root directory of the snapshot view contains a hidden file named view.dat. ClearCase searches for this file to determine whether the current directory is in a snapshot view.

If you assign a directory below the view's root to a drive letter, ClearCase cannot find the view's view.dat file and assumes that the current directory is not a snapshot view.

Making a Directory Shareable and Assigning a Drive Letter

From ClearCase hosts running either Windows NT or Windows 2000, you can make a directory shareable (see To Enable Sharing on the Snapshot View Root Directory) and assign it to a drive letter (see To Assign the Snapshot View Shared Directory to a Drive Letter). With this method, you can access a snapshot view through either My Network Places or Network Neighborhood, but the performance is slightly slower than if you use the subst command to assign the view to a drive letter (see Using the subst Command for Snapshot View Access).

From ClearCase hosts running Windows 98, you can assign a shared directory to a drive letter only if the directory is on some other host; for example, you can use this method to assign someone else's view to a drive letter.

To Enable Sharing on the Snapshot View Root Directory

NOTE: If you want to share a directory on a Windows 95 or Windows 98 computer (for example, so team members can assign your view to a drive letter on their computers), you must enable file sharing using this procedure.

1. In Windows Explorer, click the snapshot view's root directory; then click File > Sharing.

2. On the Sharing tab, click Shared As.

3. For the sake of consistency, accept the default value in the Share Name box. (Make the share name the same as the leaf name of the snapshot view's root directory.)

4. Click OK.

Other team members can now assign a drive letter on their computers to this snapshot view root directory (see To Assign the Snapshot View Shared Directory to a Drive Letter) or can create a shortcut to the view in ClearCase Explorer (see To Access Another's Snapshot View from ClearCase Explorer).

To Assign the Snapshot View Shared Directory to a Drive Letter

If the root directory of the snapshot view is shareable (see To Enable Sharing on the Snapshot View Root Directory), you can assign the directory to a drive letter on your computer.

NOTE: If you prefer to use the command line, you can use the net use command instead of the following procedure.

1. From Windows Explorer, click Tools > Map Network Drive.

2. In the Map Network Drive dialog box, select a drive letter from the Drive box.

3. In the Folder box, enter the path to the shared folder of the snapshot view root directory or click Browse and navigate to the view's root directory in My Network Places or Network Neighborhood.

4. Click Finish.

Using the subst Command for Snapshot View Access

Assigning a snapshot view root directory to a drive letter with the subst command provides slightly better performance than making the snapshot view a shared directory (see Making a Directory Shareable and Assigning a Drive Letter). However, only shared directories are accessible through My Network Places or Network Neighborhood. (To assign your own view to a drive letter on Windows 98 computers, you must use the subst command.)

1. Open a command shell.

2. Enter subst driveletter: view's-path. For example, the command

subst Y: C:\library\pat_v1.4_cropcircle

maps the pat_v1.4_cropcircle snapshot view root directory to drive Y.

Assign only the view's root directory to a drive letter. For more information on the subst command, type help subst in a command shell.