How can I instruct perforce command line to merge files instead of overwriting them when unshelving?
The use case is the following: I have a shelf that changes "my_file". On a "clean" (p4 revert ...) owner of the shelf I update to the latest version. I then want to unshelve but the action should merge any potential conflicts instead of overwriting them. Is this possible via command line?
This is the command line version of How can I instruct Perforce to merge instead of overwrite or revert when unshelving a file?.
If your workspace is "clean", there will be no conflicts. The file will be unshelved at the originally shelved version; if you sync to a different version, that will automatically schedule a resolve.
If your local file is open, unshelving will schedule a resolve automatically (at least with current versions; older versions would refuse to unshelve over open changes).
If your local file is modified but not open, you might get the overwriting behavior you describe. Don't do that. :) Use "p4 reconcile" prior to unshelving to make sure that modified files are properly opened, or "p4 clean" to discard those modifications.
Related
I would like to make the contents of a directory in a Perforce workspace be exactly the same as the latest depot contents. I want this to work no matter what has gone on in the workspace. (For example, editing files without opening them in perforce, creating unsubmitted changesets, etc.)
So far I have come up with running this series of commands, in order:
p4 clean ...
p4 revert ...
p4 sync ...
Will this do what I want? Is this the correct order? Is there a simpler way?
Those are the correct commands, and you do need all three:
revert is needed to discard changes to files you've opened
clean is needed to discard changes to files you haven't opened (including added files)
sync is needed to make sure you're at the very latest depot revision
You should either put clean after the revert or add -w to revert; otherwise files that were opened for add will be skipped by the clean (because they're open) and then revert will "abandon" them in the workspace (the -w option causes revert to delete/"wipe" added files instead of abandoning them). Other than that, I think the order is unimportant.
I've tried to shelve files today and checked the Revert checked out files after they are shelved option, and after shelving the files some files have been reverted, but some remained. It appeared that these were new files added through p4 add. Is it default behavior to not remove such files after shelving? Is there a way to remove them as part of shelving process?
What you did in P4V (shelve with reverting) is really a plain combination of two commands: shelve and revert. Behind the scenes, P4V will shelve your work (as it surely did) and then revert everything in your changelist.
Now, the revert command reverts p4 adds in such a way that they disappear from your changelist (the essence of reverting) but they remain on the local filesystem (to prevent inadvertent loss of code/data). Yes, you can argue that in this respect revert does not do a very good job of reverting your work completely, but obviously Perforce have decided to play it safe by not deleting your work.
As #Bryan Pendleton says, you can use p4 revert -w instead of plain p4 revert when you want to also delete your p4 adds from the filesystem. It's not a separate command, just a variant of p4 revert. However, there's no way to specify the -w flag (the -w behaviour) when running the "Shelve-and-Revert" combo action from P4V. (In fact, there's no way to specify -w even in the plain "Revert" action from P4V.)
I'm assuming you won't switch from P4V to the command-line (to run p4 shelve followed by p4 revert -w) just for this reason, so just remember that P4V has this little quirk and if needed, delete your local files after reverting them.
Suppose I've made some changes to a bunch of files and sent the changelist for review. The review may take up to 24 hours. During that time I might need to edit some of the files in the changelist, but when review is over, I'll need to be able to get back to the version of the file in the approved changelist. What options do I currently have to do that in Perforce?
One option that comes to mind is stashing the files and then reverting when needed, but in this way I'll lose the changes done on top of the stashed versions.
I've read about using task streams, is it something that can help me handle that situation?
I assume that the files have been shelved in the changelist for review (as opposed to emailing them off or using some other review mechanism). If so, I'd move the open files to another changelist:
p4 change
p4 reopen -c (new change) (files)
and continue working on them. The shelved versions of the files will stay in the old changelist.
If you need to go back to the old changelist, shelve your new changelist:
p4 shelve -c (new change)
and then revert your open files (they should be safe in the new shelved changelist now) and unshelve the old changelist to keep working from that point:
p4 revert (files)
p4 unshelve -s (old change)
There are lots of variations on this you could do, such as reverting and starting over from scratch rather than building your newer changes on top of the changes that are currently under review. If you do that, you'll need to merge the changes later, but Perforce will track all of that automatically and prompt you when it's time (as long as you're using Perforce commands to sync/revert/unshelve/etc -- if you start making your own backups and restoring them manually all bets are off because Perforce doesn't know what your edits are based on any more and can't guide you through the merge process intelligently).
I have made several checkins using perforce. I have no realized that all of them are unnecessary. I would like to revert all the changes for the last x revisions in the working directory, update the version number, and check in.
I am familiar with Mercurial. The way that I would it for that would be:
$ hg revert -r last_good_changeset .
$ edit version-number.txt
$ hg ci
Is there a way to do something similar in perforce?
In Perforce, a revert refers to restoring a file to the state it was in before it was checked out. What you're looking to do is back out a submitted changelist. This Perforce KB article has a few methods to do what you're trying to do, depending on your particular circumstance.
For example, if you have revisions #1 - #6 of a particular file, and you want to roll back to revision #3, you'd do this:
p4 sync myfilename#3
p4 edit myfilename
p4 sync myfilename
You're telling Perforce to get revision #3 from the depot, check it out for edit, then try to sync it back up to #head (the latest version in the depot). Since the file is checked out from an earlier revision, Perforce schedules a resolve so you need to tell it what you want to do with the file: accept the version in the depot, accept your local changes, or try to merge the two. You'll want to tell Perforce to accept the local version (or in Perforce parlance "yours"):
p4 resolve -ay myfilename
Now that it's resolved, you can submit it with:
p4 submit
If you have a series of files you want to do this with (for example, you've edited a bunch of files in a given directory and have checked them all in together several times, and you want to back out all of those), you can use changelist syntax as well. For example, if you want to roll everything back in a given directory to changelist 123, you can do this:
p4 sync //depot/some/path/*#123
p4 edit //depot/some/path/*
p4 sync //depot/some/path/*
p4 resolve -ay //depot/some/path/*
p4 submit
This will work for any revision modifier (see p4 help revisions for alternate methods of specifying the version you want).
The rollback function is specifically designed to do this. It goes back to a certain date/time or change list # and reverts all changes in the window you give it.
Simply right click on the file in question (P4V obviously) and select rollback. It will bring up this box. Not sure how to execute from command line...Ill see if I can figure it out and add that info.
what is the process to rename the files in depot without getting any conflicts?
Is there any way either in p4 or command line?
Yes, but the method depends on the version of Perforce you're running. Here's how to do it from the command line (this is copied from the output of "p4 help rename").
In release 2009.1 and higher, you can use 'p4 move' to move or
rename files. Perforce clients prior to release 2009.1 do not
support 'p4 move'. However, files in older clients can be
renamed by branching one file to another and deleting the
original file. For example:
p4 integrate fromFile toFile
p4 delete fromFile
p4 submit
For further information, see the help for the individual commands.
Note: Files renamed in this way are treated as branched files
rather than moved files in subsequent operations.