About dynamic view access model (Windows®)

All HCL VersionVault elements in a dynamic view on a Windows® computer are accessed through the MVFS, which, by default, occupies drive M:\ on each VersionVault host. Each active view has a name called a view tag which is displayed in the root directory of M:\. Each active VOB has a path called a VOB tag which is displayed as a subdirectory under each active view, as shown below:

An MVFS tree hierarchy starts with drive M:\ that has the default global name \\view. Under drive M:\, are active view tags, for example, \view1, under which are active VOB tags for those views, for example, \vob1.

From drive M:\, you can access VOBs by using paths of the following form:

\view-tag\vob-tag\path-in-vob

Typically, however, you do not work directly on drive M:\, but in the view root directory accessed by a shortcut in HCL VersionVault Windows Explorer. In Windows® Explorer, you typically assign a drive to a view.

The figure below shows how the MVFS namespace looks from drive K:\ assigned to view anne by one of the following methods:

  • In the VersionVault Windows Explorer view shortcut
  • With the net use command
  • By clicking Tools > Map Network Drive in Windows® Explorer

Two tree hierarchies are contrasted. The standard MVFS tree on the left that has drive K:\ replacing drive M:\. On the right, is a tree with one less branch, in which drive K:\ is assigned to \\ iew\anne or M:\anne.

From drive K:\, you can specify view-extended paths of the following form:

K:\anne\vob-tag\path-in-vob

If you move to drive M:\, you are in view-extended namespace, and all VOB access is by view-extended paths.

To eliminate any confusion that may result from unintentional use of view-extended paths when you are working at a command prompt, you should work from a drive letter assigned to a view. This permits you to use VOB paths of the following form in both cleartool and standard operating system commands:

drive-letter:\vob-tag\vob-object-path

Furthermore, this approach is required if you want to share derived objects (DOs) between views at build time.