<p>In a static view, how can I view an old version of a file?</p>

<p>Given an empty file (called <code>empty</code> in this example) I can subvert <code>diff</code> to show me the old version:</p>

<pre>
    % cleartool diff -ser empty File@@/main/28
</pre>

<p>This feels like a pretty ugly hack. Have I missed a more basic command? Is there a neater way to do this?</p>

<p>(I don't want to edit the config spec - that's pretty tedious, and I'm trying to look at a bunch of old versions.)</p>

<p><strong>Clarification</strong>: I want to send the version of the file to stdout, so I can use it with the rest of Unix (grep, sed, and so on.) If you found this question because you're looking for a way to save a version of an element to a file, see <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/176858/in-clearcase-how-can-i-view-old-version-of-a-file-in-a-static-view-from-the-com/4962643#4962643">Brian's answer</a>.</p>

[ Rewritten based on the first comment ]
All files in Clearcase, including versions, are available in the virtual directory structure. I don't have a lot of familiarity with static views, but I believe they still go through a virtual fs; they just get updated differently.
In that case, you can just do:
```
```
cat File@@/main/28
```
```
It can get ugly if you also have to find the right version of a directory that contained that file element. We have a PERL script at work that uses this approach to analyze historical changes made to files, and we quickly ran out of command-line space on Windows to actually run the commands!