mv

Moves or renames an element or VOB link

Applicability

Product

Command type

ClearCase®

cleartool subcommand

Platform

UNIX®
Linux®

Windows®
Parent topic: Cleartool subcommands for base ClearCase and UCM
Parent topic: Rational ClearCase command reference

Synopsis

Description

Note: The directory where the element to be moved or renamed resides must be checked out. The destination directory must also be checked out; this directory may be the same as the source directory. mv appends an appropriate line to the checkout comment for all relevant directories.

The mv command changes the name or location of an element or VOB symbolic link. For a file element that is checked out to your view, it relocates the checked-out version, also. (That is, it moves the view-private file with the same name as the element.) If the version is checked out to another view, it issues a warning:

cleartool: Warning: Moved element with checkouts to "overview.doc";
view private data may need to be moved.

The mv command can move an element only within the same VOB. To move an element to another VOB, use the relocate command.

Note: The mv command does not affect the previous versions of the directory containing the element. If you set your config spec to select a previous version of the directory, you see the old name of the element.

Moving in snapshot views

When you move a file element in a snapshot view, only the to/from path names you specify are updated in the view. If the view contains multiple copies of the element (because VOB symbolic links or hard links exist), the copies are not updated. To update the copies, you must use the update command.

If the move operation would overwrite a writable file or directory subtree containing writable files, mv renames the files to filename.renamed.

Moving view-private objects

This command is for VOB-database objects. To rename or move view-private files, use an operating system command.

Restrictions

Identities

No special identity is required.

Locks

An error occurs if one or more of these objects are locked: VOB.

Mastership

(Replicated VOBs only) No mastership restrictions.

Other

The following restrictions apply:

  • mv cannot be used to move elements between UCM components in a multi-component VOB.
  • mv cannot be used to rename a UCM component's root directory if it is one level beneath the VOB's root directory.
  • Directories below the VOB root that contain elements which have been moved with mv may be difficult to convert to a UCM components.

Options and arguments

Event records and comments

Default
Creates one or more event records, with commenting controlled by your .clearcase_profile file (default: –nc). See the comments reference page. Comments can be edited with chevent.
–c/omment comment | –cfi/le comment-file-pname |–cq/uery | –cqe/ach | –nc/omment
Overrides the default with the option you specify. See the comments reference page.

Specifying the existing objects

Default
None.
pname
One or more path names, specifying elements or VOB links. If you specify more than one pname, you must specify a directory (target-pname) as the new location.

Specifying the new location

Default
None.
target-pname
The new location for the single element or VOB link specified by pname. Both pname and target-pname must specify locations in the same VOB. An error occurs if an object already exists at target-pname.
target-dir-pname
The path name of an existing directory element, to which the elements or links are to be moved. This directory must be located in the same VOB as the objects being moved.

Examples

The UNIX system and Linux examples in this section are written for use in csh. If you use another shell, you may need to use different quoting and escaping conventions.

The Windows examples that include wildcards or quoting are written for use in cleartool interactive mode. If you use cleartool single-command mode, you may need to change the wildcards and quoting to make your command interpreter process the command appropriately.

In cleartool single-command mode, cmd-context represents the UNIX system and Linux shells or Windows command interpreter prompt, followed by the cleartool command. In cleartool interactive mode, cmd-context represents the interactive cleartool prompt.

Note: In all the examples, all directories involved must be checked out.
  • Rename a C-language source file from hello.c to hello_1.c.

    cmd-context  mv hello.c hello_1.c
    Moved "hello.c" to "hello_1.c".

  • Move all files with a .c extension into the src directory.

    cmd-context  mv *.c src
    Moved "cm_add.c" to "src/cm_add.c".
    Moved "cm_fill.c" to "src/cm_fill.c".
    Moved "convolution.c" to "src/convolution.c".
    Moved "hello.c" to "src/hello.c".
    Moved "hello_old.c" to "src/hello_old.c".
    Moved "messages.c" to "src/messages.c".
    Moved "msg.c" to "src/msg.c".
    Moved "util.c" to "src/util.c".

  • On a UNIX or Linux system, rename a symlink from messages.c to msg.lnk, and show the result with ls.

    cmd-context  mv messages.c msg.lnk
    Moved "messages.c" to "msg.lnk".

    cmd-context  ls -long msg.lnk
    symbolic link msg.lnk --> msg.c

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