7.4 Testing the Baseline

To avoid locking the integration stream or feature-specific development stream for an extended period of time, we recommend that you use a separate development stream for performing extensive testing, such as system, regression, and acceptance tests, on new baselines. See Creating a Development Stream for Testing Baselines for information on creating a development stream.

After you create a new baseline and verify that it builds and passes an initial validation test in the integration stream, rebase the development stream:

1. In the Project Explorer, select the development stream and click Tools > Rebase Stream.

The Rebase Stream Preview dialog box opens.

2. By default, ClearCase rebases your development stream to the recommended baselines. Because the new baseline has not been tested extensively, you probably have not yet promoted it to the level associated with recommended baselines. To rebase to the baseline, or baselines, you want to test, click Change.

The Change Rebase Configuration dialog box opens.

3. Select a component that contains a baseline you want to test. Click Advanced.

The Change Rebase Configuration dialog box opens, listing all baselines for the component.

4. Select the baseline that you want to test, and click OK.

5. Select another component in the Change Rebase Configuration dialog box and repeat the process. When you finish selecting baselines, click OK to close the Change Rebase Configuration dialog box.

6. Click OK in the Rebase Stream Preview dialog box to continue the rebase operation. See online help or Developing Software for details on rebasing a development stream. When you finish rebasing the development stream, you are ready to begin testing the new baselines.

Fixing Problems

If you discover a problem with a baseline while testing it, fix the affected files and deliver the changes to the integration stream as follows:

1. From the development view attached to the development stream, check out the files you need to fix. When you check out a file, you need to specify an activity.

2. Make the necessary changes to the files and check them in.

3. Build and test the changes in the development view.

4. When you are confident that the changes work, make a new baseline that incorporates the changes in the development stream.

5. Deliver the new baseline to the integration or feature-specific development stream. When you deliver the new baseline to the integration or feature-specific development stream, you merge changes with work that developers have delivered since the last baseline was created. For information about delivering baselines, see Chapter 9, Managing Parallel Releases of Multiple Projects.

6. Change the set of recommended baselines for the integration stream or feature-specific development stream to include the new baseline that you made in the testing stream. For details about recommending a baseline in another stream, see Recommending the Baseline.