About P4Eclipse

P4Eclipse, the Eclipse plugin for Helix Core Server (P4D), integrates the most important features of Helix Server into the Eclipse IDE interface. P4Eclipse enables you to check files in and out, collaborate on code reviews with Helix Swarm, and perform various other versioning tasks directly from Eclipse. P4Eclipse supports classic depots and stream depots on the Helix Server.

Basic concepts and terminology

Helix Server (P4D) is an enterprise version management tool that you can use to manage source files and other documents, such as multiple revisions of a manual, web pages, or operating system administration files. The files managed by Perforce reside in a depot. To work on files, you open the files and edit them in your Eclipse workspace. When you’re done, you submit changed files to the depot using a changelist. The depot keeps track of all of the current and previous revisions of the files.

The definitions for these Perforce terms are as follows:

• Perforce Server, also referred to as P4D, Helix Core Server, and Helix Server: the program that manages file revisions.
• Depot: the central repository where file revisions are stored and managed by Helix Server.
• Workspace: the area on your computer where you work with your copies of files and directories that are managed by Helix Server.
• Changelist: a group of files, with a description explaining how you have changed them (for example,"Fix bug #123"). Changelists are assigned numbers by the Helix Server so you can track them. Changelists enable you to group related files and submit To send a pending changelist into the Helix Server depot for processing. them together.
• Swarm Review: a code review allows other developers to see your code and provide feedback to suggest ways to improve the code's structure, performance, maintainability, and interaction with other code. You can request a Swarm review of a changelist from Eclipse, the review is assigned a number by the Helix Server so you can track it.

Basic tasks

• Get Latest Revision of a file or set of files from the depot: copy the most recent revision of a file or set of files from the depot to your workspace.
Note

Perforce also uses the term "sync" to mean "retrieve a file." This usage is different from the Eclipse term "synchronize."

• Get Revision... of a file or set of files from the depot: copy a specific revision of a file or set of files from the depot to your workspace.
• Check out a file: enables you to change the file.
• Mark a file for add or delete: indicates that the file is added to or deleted from the depot when the changelist is submitted.
• Revert a file: discard any changes you have made to an open file. If you open a file for edit and make changes, then change your mind and revert the file, Helix Server reloads the last version you got from the depot and discards your changes.
• Submit a changelist: update the depot to reflect any changes you've made to files in the changelist. Submitting is an all-or-nothing operation: if there's a problem submitting one file in a changelist, none of the other files in the changelist are updated.
• New Swarm review for a changelist: request a Swarm review of a P4 pending changelist or a P4 submitted changelist.
• Update Swarm review for a changelist: update an existing Swarm review with a P4 pending changelist.

Perforce file decorations

File decorations indicate status as follows.

	Marked for add
	Marked for delete
	Checked out by you
	Checked out by another user
	Locked
	Version in workspace is not latest version
	Workspace version is up to date
	Needs resolve (conflicting 1. A situation where two users open the same file for edit. One user submits the file, after which the other user cannot submit unless the file is resolved. 2. A resolve where the same line is changed when merging one file into another. This type of conflict occurs when the comparison of two files to a base yields different results, indicating that the files have been changed in different ways. In this case, the merge cannot be done automatically and must be resolved manually. See file conflict. changes have been made)

For more details about configuring P4Eclipse, see Setting Preferences.

This product includes software developed by the Eclipse Project (http://www.eclipse.org/).