Multiple difference locations

Move differences are more complex than other kinds of differences. To help you understand moves, the Rational® ClearCase® XML Diff Merge data display shows all the locations of a moved node. Each contributor has either a value or a placeholder node at each location.

In the following example, the button takes you to the chi element, which you can see moved in contributor 2.

In this example, notice that each contributor contains all the locations for the moved node: at the first location, the base contributor contains a placeholder, while the actual node value is stored in contributor 2. At the second location, the placeholder and value nodes are reversed. The placeholders help keep the contributor panes synchronized.

In a merge operation, the merge output pane can also contain multiple difference locations. In the example, there is actually a merge point for each location of the chi node.

How do you identify all the locations that belong to a difference? If you click Next Unresolved Difference again, you miss any additional locations in the current difference. You could click Next Difference instead, but it can sometimes be hard to tell what difference the selected location belongs to.

The best way to check difference locations is to click Next Location. This button is enabled only for differences with multiple locations, and enables you to cycle through the locations.

The next figure shows the second difference location selected. Clicking Next Location also selects the corresponding node in the merge output pane.


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