Handling checkouts

[Guest]

Hello,

We are currently evaluating plastic. Another group at our company is already

using it, but here some of us still prefer clearcase. Anyway, I would like

to ask about the way plastic handles checkouts, because I don't really

understand how it works.

In clearcase checkouts are always visible (you have to set the appropiate

rule), I mean, even if you change branch you still see your checkouts, and

can commit them to the original branch. With plastic I just realized that

they dissapear after you switch branch changing the selector. Is this the

right behaviour? Is it a bug?

[ruben]

Yes, the way Plastic SCM handles checkouts is not the same as Clearcase. In Plastic you can have the same item checked out on the same workspace on different branches. When you switch from one branch to another you will see one checkout or the other one.

Let's say you have a selector like (selector is the specification that tells what you are working with in your workspace)

rep "myrep"
 path "/"
   branch "/main/branch01" checkout "/main/branch01"

And you make a check out of the file /src/main.c. Ok, then you already have this item checked out for this branch on your workspace.

If you switch to branch /main/branch02, on the same workspace, with selector:

rep "myrep"
 path "/"
   branch "/main/branch02" checkout "/main/branch02"

You will see the file on branch02. You will be able to check out the file again on the different branch.

This was just a design decission for us, we think this way of handling checkouts is better and easier than Clearcase's one.