p4 counter
Synopsis
Access, set, increment, or delete a persistent variable.
Syntax
p4 [g-opts] counter
countername
p4 [g-opts] counter [-f -v]
countername
value
p4 [g-opts] counter [-f] -d
countername
p4 [g-opts] counter [-f -v] -i
countername
p4 [g-opts] counter [-f] -m
[pair list]
p4 [g-opts] counter --from
oldvalue --to
newvalue
countername
Description
Counters provide long-term variable storage for scripts that access Perforce. Counters can be assigned textual values as well as numeric ones.
The command includes the following variants:
-
The variant
p4 counter counternamereturns the value of variable countername.If a counter does not exist, its value is returned as zero; counter names are not stored in the database until set to a nonzero value.
- The variant
p4 counter countername valuesets the value of variable countername to value. If countername does not already exist, it is created. - The variant
p4 counter -d counternamedeletes the counter countername. This has the same effect as setting the counter to zero. - The variant
p4 counter -i counternameincrements the counter by one and returns the new value. Use this option instead of a value argument. -
The variant
p4 counter -m pair listdefines multiple operations to be performed. Each operation is defined by a value pair in the pair list. To set a counter use a name and value; to delete a counter use a-(hyphen) followed by the name. See Examples.This variant is useful in distributed environments where running individual commands is likely to introduce unwanted latency.
-
The final variant (
--from…--to) sets the specified counter to the new value only if the current value of the counter isoldvalue. A counter that has never been set or that has been deleted cannot be set using this syntax variant.This variant effectively provides a compare-and-set function that can be used as a building block for higher-level tools and process that use counters.
Perforce uses a number of counters in the course of its regular operations. These might be useful to various tools. For example, review tools can keep track of which changes have been reviewed and which changes are still under review by writing such status information into counters.
See the p4 counters command for a list of Perforce counters.
Superusers can use the -f option to force changes to these counters.
Changes to these counters are not without risk; see the Release Notes
for examples of the types of situations in which manually resetting
these counters might be appropriate.
The last changelist number known to the Perforce service (the output of
p4 counter change) includes pending changelists created by
users, but not yet submitted to the depot. It can be useful to know the
changelist number of the last submitted changelist, which is the
second field of the output of the command:
$ p4 changes -m 1 -s submittedThe last changelist number successfully submitted (that is, no longer
pending) to the Perforce service is held in the maxCommitChange
counter.
Options
|
|
Delete variable countername. |
|
|
Increment variable countername by 1 and return the new value. This option can only be used with numeric counters. |
|
|
Set or delete counters that are reserved for use by Perforce (listed
in Never set the Only operators or |
|
|
Specify a list of operations to be performed. Each operation is
defined by a value pair in the pair list. To set a counter, use a
name and value; to delete a counter use a |
|
|
Display the previous value of the specified counter after the counter has been set or incremented. |
|
|
See “Global Options”. |
Usage Notes
| Can File Arguments Use Revision Specifier? | Can File Arguments Use Revision Range? | Minimal Access Level Required |
|---|---|---|
|
N/A |
N/A |
|
Examples
|
|
Set the value of a counter Requires |
|
|
Display the value of Requires |
|
|
Set two counters. |
|
|
Delete two counters. |
|
|
Set one counter; delete one counter. |