PM80247: DIFFBL BETWEEN STREAM AND NEW BASELINE REPORTS DIFFERENCE

APAR status

• Closed as Permanent restriction.

Error description

• The reference manual for 'diffbl' says:
  -----------------------------------------------------
  The diffbl command compares the contents of two baselines or
  streams and displays any differences it finds. You can choose to
  see differences in terms of activities, versions, and for
  composite baselines, members.
  
  You can use the diffbl command to compare a baseline and a
  stream, a baseline and a baseline, or a stream and a stream.
  When specifying a stream, all baselines in the stream are used
  in the comparison as well as any changes in the stream that are
  not yet captured in a baseline.
  -----------------------------------------------------
  
  It is then reasonable that for a stream with a composite
  baseline hierarchy, immediately after creating new baselines,
  a diffbl between the stream itself and the newly created
  top-level composite baseline should show no differences.
  
  However diffbl between stream and new baseline reports
  difference when the new baseline was created with specific
  activities (even if all activities are selected), ie: cleartool
  mkbl -act ...
  
  
  Workarounds:
  a) create baseline without -act switch
  b) ignore/remove activities of other stream from diffbl output
  

Local fix

Problem summary

• ****************************************************************
  * USERS AFFECTED:                                              *
  * Users of the Rational Change-Rational ClearCase integration  *
  ****************************************************************
  * PROBLEM DESCRIPTION:                                         *
  * It is expected that a cleartool diffbl command, between a    *
  * stream and a newly created top-level composite baseline      *
  * should show no differences.  However, in some circumstances  *
  * this command is returning differences.                       *
  ****************************************************************
  * RECOMMENDATION:                                              *
  ****************************************************************
  

Problem conclusion

• The command is actually working as designed.   In this case, the
  -activities option is given on the mkbl command, which means
  apply the baseline to the activities specified, and ONLY those
  activities. Here is the description of the option from the mkbl
  documentation:
  
  "You can use this option to include only a subset of the
  unrecorded
  changes in the new baselines. A baseline is created for each
  component that has unrecorded changes in the specified list of
  activities."
  
  In other words, for deliver actions, it does not follow
  integration arcs to contributing activities. This is why the
  contributing activity shows up in diffbl - it has been excluded
  from the baseline.  A default baseline (no options) will follow
  integration arcs and include any contributing activities in the
  map for the baseline.  So, the baseline created with -activities
  will not have included the contributing activity, but diffbl
  WILL follow the integration arcs  and conclude that the
  contributing activity is not included in the baseline because it
  has an unmerged element. The element is unmerged because it has
  a merge type of "never."
  

Temporary fix

Comments

APAR Information

• APAR is sysrouted FROM one or more of the following:

• APAR is sysrouted TO one or more of the following:

Fix information

Applicable component levels