clearcase - What are the differences between a snapshot view and a dynamic view?

Question

I have seen in ClearCase that there is a Snapshot view and a Dynamic view. What are the differences between these types of views (I'm assuming there are only two types of views) and when are the appropriate times to use them?

Answer 1

Snapshot views are based on the local filesystem (like a workspace in Subversion):

• you load files anywhere you want on your hard drive
• you have to 'cleartool update' to refresh its content

Dynamic views are based on network content: they represent the dynamic (as in "always refreshed") view of a network content (the remote VOB versions selected by the config spec)

• you access them only through the "dynamic view" mount point (M: on Windows or /view on Unix: it is a MVFS mount point: MultiVersion Filesystem)
• you don't have to refresh them

See the second part of this SO answer for a discussion on when to use dynamic views vs. snapshot.

I often use them (the dynamic views) in addition of snapshot views, meaning it is a great tool to just "see" the files (you can for example use a dynamic view to tweak its config spec until you see what you want and then copy those select rules into your usual snapshot view)