Here’s a question: If you have a text file that contains a very long line of text (>8000 characters), is it still a text file?
I’d say Yes. But ComputerClearCase says No. Or at least hinted it meant No via several obscure error messages.
The file in question is a whole bunch of JavaScript code (part of the Microsoft AJAX release) that is not intended to be read by anyone viewing a web page, and hence is sensibly put on one line (albeit 69168 bytes in length).
Firstly, I was getting a strange error when adding them to ClearCase. Apparently, despite of the error, they were being added – I found them in a checked-out state. Upon trying to check them in, I got:
Error checking in ‘…MicrosoftAjax.js’. Type manager “text_file_delta” failed create_version operation.
Unable to check in ‘…MicrosoftAjax.js’
…followed by OK and Cancel buttons (quite how one can Cancel an operation that can’t be done anyway is beyond me!)
I then thought I’d take a look at the file and did a ‘diff’ with the previous version. I got this:
Error encountered doing compare operation.
“c:tempccdm02327” is not a ‘text file’: it contains a line exceeding 8000 bytes.
Use a different type manager (such as a compressed file).
So, according to ClearCase, a text file is not a text file if it has lines of over 8000 characters!
Anyway, the solution was to use the cleartool command line tool to add the file using a different ‘type’ – a compressed text file type. Note that this doesn’t actually change the contents of the file, nor the way it’s handled (thankfully!). Of course, once the solution was presented to me…
**C:folderScriptLibraryRelease>cleartool mkelem -nc -eltype compressed_text_file MicrosoftAjax.js
…everything became perfectly clear!
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