# 20 Jun 2010
I sometimes like do my development work in a local Mercurial repo even though I’m stuck checking into ClearCase in the end.
I create a fresh snapshot view in ClearCase, create a Mercurial repo on the view, then do my work in a clone of that Mercurial repo. It isn’t ideal, but it allows me to delay all the file checkin/checkout work required when dealing with ClearCase. The main advantage is that it frees me to use whatever IDE or text editor I want, without relying on an integrated ClearCase plugin.
The tricky part comes when it is time to push my changes from my clone to the hybrid Mercurial/ClearCase repository/snapshot view — or more accurately, after the push, during a hg update on the hybrid repo/view.
I’ve been using this bash script (run in Cygwin since ClearCase isn’t available for OS X) to help with that step.
It continuously attempts to update (via hg update
) the hybrid repo/view, and looks for files that need to be Checked Out in the ClearCase snapshot, and then checks them out.