Environment and Registry Variables

Each operating system and shell has its own syntax for setting environment variables.The following table shows how to set the P4CLIENT environment variable on various systems:

OS or Shell	Environment Variable Example
UNIX: `ksh`, `sh`, `bash`	`P4CLIENT=value ; export P4CLIENT`
UNIX: `csh`	`setenv P4CLIENT value`
VMS	`def/j P4CLIENT "value"`
Mac OS X (`bash`)	`P4CLIENT=value ; export P4CLIENT`
Windows	`p4 set P4CLIENT=value` Windows administrators running Perforce as a service can set variables for use by a specific service with `p4 set -S svcnamevar=value`, or set variables for all users on the local machine with `p4 set -s var=value`. (See the `p4 set` command for more details on setting Perforce variables in Windows and OS X).

Note

You may use $home to set environment variables. For example:

P4IGNORE=$home/myignorefile

$home is expanded to the path of the user’s home directory. The user’s home directory is taken to be the value of the HOME environment variable or of USERPROFILE on Windows.

Perforce’s environment variables can be grouped into the following four categories:

Crucial: The variable must almost always be set on the client; default values are rarely sufficient. Understanding these variables is crucial for users and administrators alike.
Useful: Setting this variable can provide additional functionality to the user, but is not required for most Perforce operations.
Esoteric: The default value is normally sufficient; it rarely needs to be changed.
Server: The variable is set by the Perforce system administrator on the machine that hosts the Perforce service. Some of these variables are used by Perforce applications as well; in these cases, the variable is listed twice.

Crucial Variables Useful Variables Esoteric Variables Server Variables

Crucial Variables	Useful Variables	Esoteric Variables	Server Variables
`P4CLIENT` `P4PORT` `P4PASSWD` `P4USER`	`P4CONFIG` `P4DIFF` `P4EDITOR` `P4MERGE` `P4CHARSET` `P4TRUST`	`P4PAGER` `PWD` `TMP`, `TEMP` `P4TICKETS` `P4LANGUAGE` `P4LOGINSSO` `P4COMMANDCHARSET` `P4DIFFUNICODE` `P4MERGEUNICODE` `P4CLIENTPATH`	`P4AUDIT` `P4JOURNAL` `P4LOG` `P4PORT` `P4ROOT` `P4DEBUG` `P4NAME` `P4SSLDIR`