I'm writing a syntax check tool to parse several files on different branches.
Is there a way for me to read the contents without checking out the file?
The tool is written in Perl.
`p4 print //depot/path/to/file`;
(Usual requirements for running a p4 command apply -- make sure the p4 executable is in your PATH, make sure you're authenticated with p4 login, make sure you're connecting to the right server, etc.)
See p4 help print for more info on the print command -- you might find the -q and/or -o flags helpful depending on what exactly you need to do with the output.
I want to create a list of all the files in a folder in perforce that were submitted past a certain date. I used the command line
p4 files -e [path to the folder in perforce] #[date] > [somefile.txt]
but this gave me every file in the depot, resulting in a 2gb txt file. Is the thing I want to do even possible with the 'p4 files' command?
I hope I've been clear enough. Thanks
The command you want is:
p4 files PATH#DATE,#now
e.g. if the date is 2016/02/02 and the path is //depot/main:
p4 files //depot/main/...#2016/02/02,#now > somefile.txt
I tried this command to get the changed files and its revision
p4 describe -s <changelistNum>
Right now i want to get the detail change against the previous revision. For example, the file //depot/xxx/myproject/a.js is changed from #3 to #4 in this submit. Then i want to get the changed contents. So i tried this command, but it only show very common description:
p4 diff2 -df //depot/xxx/myproject/a.js#3 //depot/xxx/myproject/a.js#4
Anyone can help with this?
If you want describe to show you the file differences, simply omit the -s flag.
Describe -s means "short" describe, and it omits the diffs .
Without -s, describe shows the file diffs.
There are other flags to describe, too. Do "p4 help describe" to find out about all the flags your server supports.
I am creating some build scripts that interact with Perforce and I would like to mark for delete a few files. What exactly is the P4 syntax using the command line?
p4 delete filename
(output of p4 help delete)
delete -- Open an existing file to delete it from the depot
p4 delete [ -c changelist# ] [ -n ] file ...
Opens a file that currently exists in the depot for deletion.
If the file is present on the client it is removed. If a pending
changelist number is given with the -c flag the opened file is
associated with that changelist, otherwise it is associated with
the 'default' pending changelist.
Files that are deleted generally do not appear on the have list.
The -n flag displays what would be opened for delete without actually
changing any files or metadata.
Teach a man to fish:
p4 help - gets you general command
syntax
p4 help commands - lists the
commands
p4 help <command name> -
provides detailed help for a specific
command
http://www.perforce.com/perforce/doc.062/manuals/boilerplates/quickstart.html
Deleting files
To delete files from both the Perforce server and your workspace, issue the p4 delete command. For example:
p4 delete demo.txt readme.txt
The specified files are removed from your workspace and marked for deletion from the server. If you decide you don't want to delete the files after all, issue the p4 revert command. When you revert files opened for delete, Perforce restores them to your workspace.
Admitted - it takes a (small) number of steps to find the (excellent!) Perforce user guide online in the version that matches your installation and get to the chapter with the information you need.
Whenever I find myself in need of anything about the p4 command line client, I rely on the help Perforce have built into it. Accessing it could not be easier:
on the command line, enter p4
This gets you to the information Michael Burr has shown in his answer (and some more).
If you do not get a help screen right away, something is wrong with our client configuration, e.g. P4PORT is not set properly. You obviously need to fix that first.
Anybody have a script or alias to find untracked (really: unadded) files in a Perforce tree?
EDIT: I updated the accepted answer on this one since it looks like P4V added support for this in the January 2009 release.
EDIT: Please use p4 status now. There is no need for jumping through hoops anymore. See #ColonelPanic's answer.
In the Jan 2009 version of P4V, you can right-click on any folder in your workspace tree and click "reconcile offline work..."
This will do a little processing then bring up a split-tree view of files that are not checked out but have differences from the depot version, or not checked in at all. There may even be a few other categories it brings up.
You can right-click on files in this view and check them out, add them, or even revert them.
It's a very handy tool that's saved my ass a few times.
EDIT: ah the question asked about scripts specifically, but I'll leave this answer here just in case.
On linux, or if you have gnu-tools installed on windows:
find . -type f -print0 | xargs -0 p4 fstat >/dev/null
This will show an error message for every unaccounted file. If you want to capture that output:
find . -type f -print0 | xargs -0 p4 fstat >/dev/null 2>mylogfile
Under Unix:
find -type f ! -name '*~' -print0| xargs -0 p4 fstat 2>&1|awk '/no such file/{print $1}'
This will print out a list of files that are not added in your client or the Perforce depot. I've used ! -name '*~' to exclude files ending with ~.
Ahh, one of the Perforce classics :) Yes, it really sucks that there is STILL no easy way for this built into the default commands.
The easiest way is to run a command to find all files under your clients root, and then attempt to add them to the depot. You'll end up with a changelist of all new files and existing files are ignored.
E.g dir /s /b /A-D | p4 -x - add
(use 'find . -type f -print' from a nix command line).
If you want a physical list (in the console or file) then you can pipe on the results of a diff (or add if you also want them in a changelist).
If you're running this within P4Win you can use $r to substitute the client root of the current workspace.
Is there an analogue of svn status or git status?
Yes, BUT.
As of Perforce version 2012.1, there's the command p4 status and in P4V 'reconcile offline work'. However, they're both very slow. To exclude irrelevant files you'll need to write a p4ignore.txt file per https://stackoverflow.com/a/13126496/284795
2021-07-16: THIS ANSWER MAY BE OBSOLETE.
I am reasonably sure that it was accurate in 2016, for whatever version of Perforce I was using them (which was not necessarily the most current). But it seems that this problem or design limitation has been remedied in subsequent releases of Perforce. I do not know what the stack overflow etiquette for this is -- should this answer be removed?
2016 ANSWER
I feel impelled to add an answer, since the accepted answer, and some of the others, have what I think is a significant problem: they do not understand the difference between a read-only query command, and a command that makes changes.
I don't expect any credit for this answer, but I hope that it will help others avoid wasting time and making mistakes by following the accepted but IMHO incorrect answer.
---+ BRIEF
Probably the most convenient way to find all untracked files in a perforce workspace is p4 reconcile -na.
-a says "give me files that are not in the repository, i.e. that should be added".
-n says "make no changes" - i.e. a dry-run. (Although the messages may say "opened for add", mentally you must interpret that as "would be opened for add if not -n")
Probably the most convenient way to find all local changes made while offline - not just files that might need to be added, but also files that might need to be deleted, or which have been changed without being opened for editing via p4 edit, is p4 reconcile -n.
Several answers provided scripts, often involving p4 fstat. While I have not verified all of those scripts, I often use similar scripts to make up for the deficiencies of perforce commands such as p4 reconcile -n - e.g. often I find that I want local paths rather than Perforce depot paths or workspace paths.
---+ WARNING
p4 status is NOT the counterpart to the status commands on other version control systems.
p4 status is NOT a read-only query. p4 status actually finds the same sort of changes that p4 reconcile does, and adds them to the repository. p4 status does not seem to have a -n dry-run option like p4 reconcile does.
If you do p4 status, look at the files and think "Oh, I don't need those", then you will have to p4 revert them if you want to continue editing in the same workspace. Or else the changes that p4 status added to your changeset will be checked in the next time.
There seems to be little or no reason to use p4 status rather than p4 reconcile -n, except for some details of local workspace vs depot pathname.
I can only imagine that whoever chose 'status' for a non-read-only command had limited command of the English language and other version control tools.
---+ P4V GUI
In the GUI p4v, the reconcile command finds local changes that may need to be added, deleted, or opened for editing. Fortunately it does not add them to a changelist by default; but you still may want to be careful to close the reconcile window after inspecting it, if you don't want to commit the changes.
Alternatively from P4Win, use the ""Local Files not in Depot" option on the left hand view panel.
I don't use P4V much, but I think the equivalent is to select "Hide Local Workspace Files" in the filter dropdown of the Workspace view tab.p4 help fstat
In P4V 2015.1 you'll find these options under the filter button like this:
I use the following in my tool that backs up any files in the workspace that differ from the repository (for Windows). It handles some odd cases that Perforce doesn't like much, like embedded blanks, stars, percents, and hashmarks:
dir /S /B /A-D | sed -e "s/%/%25/g" -e "s/#/%40/g" -e "s/#/%23/g" -e "s/\*/%2A/g" | p4 -x- have 1>NUL:
"dir /S /B /A-D" lists all files at or below this folder (/S) in "bare" format (/B) excluding directories (/A-D). The "sed" changes dangerous characters to their "%xx" form (a la HTML), and the "p4 have" command checks this list ("-x-") against the server discarding anything about files it actually locates in the repository ("1>NUL:"). The result is a bunch of lines like:
Z:\No_Backup\Workspaces\full\depot\Projects\Archerfish\Portal\Main\admin\html\images\nav\navxx_background.gif - file(s) not on client.
Et voilà!
Quick 'n Dirty: In p4v right-click on the folder in question and add all files underneath it to a new changelist. The changelist will now contain all files which are not currently part of the depot.
The following commands produce status-like output, but none is quite equivalent to svn status or git status, providing a one-line summary of the status of each file:
p4 status
p4 opened
p4 diff -ds
I don't have enough reputation points to comment, but Ross' solution also lists files that are open for add. You probably do not want to use his answer to clean your workspace.
The following uses p4 fstat (thanks Mark Harrison) instead of p4 have, and lists the files that aren't in the depot and aren't open for add.
dir /S /B /A-D | sed -e "s/%/%25/g" -e "s/#/%40/g" -e "s/#/%23/g" -e "s/\*/%2A/g" | p4 -x- fstat 2>&1 | sed -n -e "s/ - no such file[(]s[)]\.$//gp"
===Jac
Fast method, but little orthodox. If the codebase doesn't add new files / change view too often, you could create a local 'git' repository out of your checkout. From a clean perforce sync, git init, add and commit all files locally. Git status is fast and will show files not previously committed.
The p4 fstat command lets you test if a file exists in the workspace, combine with find to locate files to check as in the following Perl example:
// throw the output of p4 fstat to a 'output file'
// find:
// -type f :- only look at files,
// -print0 :- terminate strings with \0s to support filenames with spaces
// xargs:
// Groups its input into command lines,
// -0 :- read input strings terminated with \0s
// p4:
// fstat :- fetch workspace stat on files
my $status=system "(find . -type f -print0 | xargs -0 p4 fstat > /dev/null) >& $outputFile";
// read output file
open F1, $outputFile or die "$!\n";
// iterate over all the lines in F1
while (<F1>) {
// remove trailing whitespace
chomp $_;
// grep lines which has 'no such file' or 'not in client'
if($_ =~ m/no such file/ || $_ =~ m/not in client/){
// Remove the content after '-'
$_=~ s/-\s.*//g;
// below line is optional. Check ur output file for more clarity.
$_=~ s/^.\///g;
print "$_\n";
}
}
close F1;
Or you can use p4 reconcile -n -m ...
If it is 'opened for delete' then it has been removed from the workspace. Note that the above command is running in preview mode (-n).
I needed something that would work in either Linux, Mac or Windows. So I wrote a Python script for it. The basic idea is to iterate through files and execute p4 fstat on each. (of course ignoring dependencies and tmp folders)
You can find it here: https://gist.github.com/givanse/8c69f55f8243733702cf7bcb0e9290a9
This command can give you a list of files that needs to be added, edited or removed:
p4 status -aed ...
you can use them separately too
p4 status -a ...
p4 status -e ...
p4 status -d ...
In P4V, under the "View" menu item choose "Files in Folder" which brings up a new tab in the right pane.
To the far right of the tabs there is a little icon that brings up a window called "Files in Folder" with 2 icons.
Select the left icon that looks like a funnel and you will see several options. Choose "Show items not in Depot" and all the files in the folder will show up.
Then just right-click on the file you want to add and choose "Mark for Add...". You can verify it is there in the "Pending" tab.
Just submit as normal (Ctrl+S).