What are the differences between a snapshot view and a dynamic view?
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/viewon 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)