java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: CopyAreaFile: Illegal name ("") specified

why the error, java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: CopyAreaFile: Illegal name ("") specified, might occur when using IBM® Rational® ClearCase® Remote Client (CCRC) or ClearCase Web (CCWeb) to browse for VOBs.

Symptom

When looking at certain directories or files of the VOB using a ClearCase web view (CCRC or CCWeb), the following error appears: Error in applet: Unexpected Exception java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: CopyAreaFile: Illegal name ("") specified. at com/rational/ccwebv6/copyarea/CopyAreaFile. at com/rational/ccwebv6/client/BrowseApplet.reconcileDirectoryContentsIntoVector at com/rational/ccwebv6/client/BrowseApplet.reconcileDirectoryContentsInternal at com/rational/ccwebv6/client/BrowseApplet.reconcileDirectoryContents Note: This only happens to specific directory or element versions, not all. The directory or version in question contains language specific characters (such as Ä ä and similar.)

Cause

The ClearCase configuration on UNIX® and Linux® contains a PassEnv LANG directive which allows the web interface to read the LANG environment variable, of the user account that starts the Rational Web Platform (RWP) server. This variable is used for character encoding. This info is then passed in the HTTP header. If the browser is not set to use the same encoding or does not support the encoding at all, it will have problem to display the page.

Resolving the problem

Set the LANG Environment Variable on the Rational Web Platform server to the language used for the development. Example: (scenarios using German Umlauts) LANG=de_DE.ISO8859-1 Note: If this fails, attempt to also set the LANG system environment variable to the correct language on the client running CCRC as well as the server. On the RWP server, the LANG change should be made to the CCRC login environment. This can be done by adding the variable into the ccrc.conf file (example path:/var/adm/rational/common/rwp/conf/ccrc.conf.) If using CCRC, be sure to use the URL format http:///ccrc/ instead of http:///ccweb/.