Question

I have a bad feeling that the answer is no, but is the checkin command of ClearCase Remote Client in single-command mode in anyway atomic?

For example, I have three files A, B, and C. I make changes to each file and perform a checkin. A checks in, B checks in, but C gets a merge conflict. In that case, what happens? Will the checkin for all files fail, or will it fail for only C (in which case, the repo is in a broken state).

If it is the latter, is there a way to make it atomic using just rcleartool?

Any help would be appreciated!

Answer 1

I haven’t tested it yet, but not that:

1. atomic checkin needs to be enabled on the target Vob in which you want to perform atomic checkins.
2. It is only for base ClearCase
3. You need 7.1.2 (otherwise you will have an error for most of the object type when doing multiple files checkins)
4. No other (read/write) operations on the Vobs are possible during an atomic checkin.
   (which makes me think that rcleartool shouldn’t be able to perform — over WAN — an atomic checkin: it would block a Vob for way too much time).

The latest (7.1.2) description of Checkin does mention:

Select this option (which is also known as atomic checkin) to specify that the checkin operation takes place in a single, bulk transaction. If any of the resources being checked in fails for any reason, the entire checkin operation fails.
When you select this option, the Checkin even if the version is identical to its predecessor option is automatically selected since an identical file would cause the entire checkin to fail.

So in case of a merge conflict, it will abort the all transaction.