Four months ago a colleague had a shapshot view that he deleted from the file system while there were still directory checkouts on a certain branch, say branch 'A'. Now some of directories are obsolete and need to be rmname'd from other views, but this cannot happen apparently while they are still checked out on branch A.
What is the most direct way to unco these directories on branch a?
You can unregister completely this view (even if the actual view is gone from the filesystem).
See "ClearCase: Is it possible to cancel checkouts not made from your own view?":
cleartool rmview -force -uuid (uuid_of_the_view) -vob \aVob
That will trigger, as a side-effect, the removal of the checkout status of any file checked out by this view (referenced by its uuid) in this vob (the -vob option).
See more at "How to delete clearcase views created by other users?":
cleartool lsview -l theViewToRemove # get its uuid
cleartool rmtag -view theViewToRemove
cleartool unregister -view -uuid uuid_of_viewToRemove
You even can use the nuke_view.pl script.
Now some of directories are obsolete and need to be rmname'd from other views, but this cannot happen apparently while they are still checked out on branch
A.
As I mention in "How do delete a file in ClearCase?", even if you don't unregister the view, you can still remove a file from a branch, even if it is checked out in another branch.
You simply need to do it from the command-line:
cleartool rmname -force /path/to/file
Eric Schnipke proposes in the comments:
cleartool lsview -l theViewToRemove to get the view's UUID and then cleartool rmview -force -uuid (uuid_of_the_view) -vob \aVob to remove the view and offending file version.