What does "branch@@branch@@branch" mean in Clearcase?

Background

I am trying to axe away some elements that are no longer needed in clearcase. I think I might have subverted some policy, becuase after I ran a rmbranch on the files I wanted to remove, each file ended up in this state:

/some/directory/@@/main/dev/retired_branch_time_stamp/oldViewNum1234/1/file.txt@@/main/dev/new_view_3425_nickname/1

I am familiar with /some/directory/element@@/some/branch but not with the double "@@" notation above. Hench my question...

Question

What does the something@@something@@something notation mean in clearcase?

Solution

As I mentioned in "Access labels of file through extended filename as directory", everything after the @@ is a version-extended pathname (see pathnames_ccase )

Branch: element-pname@@branch-pname
Version: element-pname@@version-selector

So:

The first part /some/directory/@@/ is a VOB-extended namespace directory
Then you have the pname followed by a version selector.

That does refer to the concept of "extended namespace":

An extension of the standard Windows or Linux or UNIX file system that allows access to versions of elements.