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Update a client workspace’s have list without actually copying any files.
p4 [g-opts] flush [-f -L -n -q] [file[revRange] ...]Using p4 flush incorrectly can be
dangerous.
If you use p4 flush incorrectly, the versioning
service’s metadata will not reflect the actual state of your client
workspace, and subsequent
Perforce
commands will not operate on the files you expect! Do not use
p4 flush until you fully understand its
purpose.
It is rarely necessary to use p4 flush.
The p4 flush command performs half the work of a
p4 sync. Running p4 sync filespec has two effects:
filespec are copied
from the depot to the client workspace;p4 flush performs only the second of these
steps. Under most circumstances, this is not desirable, because a client
workspace’s have list should always reflect the workspace’s true
contents. However, if the workspace’s contents are already out of sync
with the have list, p4 flush can sometimes be used to
bring the have list in sync with the actual contents. Because p4
flush performs no actual file transfers, this command is
much faster then the corresponding p4
sync.
Use p4 flush only when you need to update the have
list to match the actual state of the client workspace. The
Examples
subsection describes two such situations.
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Force the flush. Perforce performs the flush even if the client workspace already has the file at the specified revision. |
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For scripting purposes, perform the flush on a list of valid file arguments in full depot syntax with a valid revision number. |
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Display the results of the flush without actually performing the flush. This lets you make sure that the flush does what you think it will do before you do it. |
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Quiet operation: suppress normal output messages. Messages regarding errors or exceptional conditions are not suppressed. |
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See Global Options. |
| Can File Arguments Use Revision Specifier? | Can File Arguments Use Revision Range? | Minimal Access Level Required |
|---|---|---|
|
Yes |
Yes |
|
Because p4 flush updates the have list without
copying files, and p4 sync
-f updates the client workspace to match the have list,
p4 flush files followed by p4 sync -f
files is almost equivalent to p4 syncfiles. This means that a bad flush can be
almost entirely fixed by following it with a p4 sync -f of the same
file revisions that were originally flushed.
Unfortunately, this is not a complete remedy, because any file
revisions that were deleted from the have list by p4
flush will remain in the client workspace even after
the p4 sync -f. In
this case, you will need to manually remove deleted file revisions
from the client workspace.
p4 flush is an alias for p4 sync
-k.Ten users at the same site need to set up new, identical client
workspaces from the same depot at a remote location over a slow link.
The standard method calls for each user to run identical p4 sync commands, but if
bandwidth is limited, there’s a faster way:
p4 syncfiles from his client workspace
firstworkspace.The other users run p4 flush files
@firstworkspace, which brings their client
workspaces' have lists into sync with the files copied into the
client workspaces in the last step.
Because p4 flush moves no files across the
slow link, the process can be much faster then running the same
p4 sync command
ten separate times.
Joe has a client workspace called joe that has a
Root: of
/usr/joe/project1/subproj
and a View: of
//depot/joe/proj1/subproj/...
//joe/...
He decides that all the files under /usr/joe/project1
need to be included in the workspace, and accomplishes this by using
p4 client to change
the Root: to
/usr/joe/project1
and the View: to
//depot/joe/proj1/... //joe/...
This keeps his current client workspace files in the same place,
while extending the scope of the workspace to include other files.
But when Joe runs his next p4
sync, he’s surprised to see that
Perforce
deletes every non-open file in the client workspace and replaces it
with an identical copy of the same file!
Perforce
behaves this way because the have list describes each file’s location
relative to the client root, and the physical location of each file
is only computed when each
Perforce
command is run. Thus,
Perforce
thinks that each file has been relocated, and the p4 sync deletes the file
from its old location and copies it into its new location.
To make better use of
Perforce,
Joe might have performed a p4 flush #have
instead. This would have updated his client workspace’s have list to
reflect the files' "new" locations without actually copying any
files.
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To copy files from the depot to the client workspace |
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To bring the client workspace in sync with the have list after a
bad |
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