Caution on Reusing the Name of a Renamed Element
The ability to reuse the name of a renamed element provides significant flexibility for project refactoring tasks. But it also introduces a complication: what happens if you rename an element, create a new element at the same pathname, then invoke the Revert to Backed command on the renamed element?
The renamed element cannot revert to its old pathname, because there’s a new element at that pathname. The original element simply disappears from your workspace. [why not (stranded) status?
At this point, your workspace contains a new element at the given pathname, and the parent stream contains the original element at that pathname. Attempting to promote the new element would produce a 'name already exists in parent stream' error. Use one of the following procedures to return this pathname to a consistent state:
If you want to return to using the original element
Rename the new element, to a name like myfile.java.DISCARDED.
Defunct the new element
Promote the new element to the backing stream
At this point, the original element reappears in the Details pane, with (missing) status.
Invoke the Populate command on the original element.
If you want to discard the original element and use the new element
These steps must be performed with the AccuRev CLI, which supports defuncting of the "disappeared" element using its element-ID The unique, immutable integer identifier by which AccuRev tracks the changes to a particular file element or directory element. An element's name or pathname can change, but its element-ID never changes..
Defunct the original element in the workspace, using the command accurev defunct –e <element-ID>.
Promote the defuncted version to the backing stream.