p4 describe displays the details of one or more changelists. For each changelist, the output includes the changelist's number, the changelist's creator, the client workspace name, the date the changelist was created, and the changelist's description.
If a changelist has been submitted, the default output also includes a list of affected files and the diffs of those files relative to the previous revision.
If a changelist is pending, it is flagged as such in the output, and the list of open files is shown. (Diffs for
pending changelists are not displayed because the files have yet to be submitted to the depot.)
The p4 describe command limits its report depending on whether or not a changelist is public or restricted. Restricted
submitted or
shelved changes are not reported unless you either own the change or have
list permission for at least one file in the change. Restricted
pending (but unshelved) changes are visible only to the change owner. If you do not have permission to view a restricted changelist, the message "no permission" is displayed in place of a changelist description. Perforce administrators can override this behavior and view restricted changelists by using the
-f flag.
You cannot run p4 describe on the default changelist.
The p4 describe command uses
p4's built-in diff subroutine. The
P4DIFF variable has no effect on this command.
