Open topic with navigation

Global Options

Global options for Helix Server commands can be supplied on the command line before any Helix Server command.

Syntax

p4 [-b batchsize -c client -d dir -H host -p port -P pass -u user -x file -C charset
    -Q charset -Llanguage] [-I] [-G] [-s] [-z tag] cmd [args ...]

p4 -V

p4 -h

Options

Usage Notes

• Be aware that the global options must be specified on the command line before the Helix Server command. Options specified after the Helix Server command will not be interpreted as global options, but as options for the command being invoked. It is therefore possible to have the same command line option appearing twice in the same command, being interpreted differently each time.

  For example, the command p4 -c anotherclient edit -c 140 file.c will open file file.c for edit in pending changelist 140 under client workspace anotherclient.

• The -x option is useful for automating tedious tasks because it processes a sequence of arguments, line by line, from the specified file. For example, suppose you want an easy way to bring many files into the depot. Create one file that lists many files, each on a separate line. Let's use the UNIX cat command to verify we have such a file:

  cat filesToAdd.txt
partOne.txt
partTwo.txt
partThree.txt

  The -x option enables the p4 add command to process each line of the file as if we had issued a series of p4 add commands, each time with a different file argument. In this case,

  p4 -x filesToAdd.txt add

  is the equivalent of:

  p4 add partOne.txt
  

  p4 add partTwo.txt

  p4 add partThree.txt

  Therefore, the result of p4 -x filesToAdd.txt can be:

  //depot/repo/partOne.txt#1 - opened for add
//depot/repo/partTwo.txt#1 - opened for add
//depot/repo/partThree.txt#1 - opened for add


  The -x option can be as powerful as whatever generates its input. For example, a UNIX developer who wants to edit any file referring to a file.h file can issue the command:

  grep -l file.h *.c | cut -f1 -d: | p4 -x - edit

  where:

  • the grep command lists occurrences of file.h in the *.c files
  • the -l option tells grep to list each file only once
  • the cut command splits off the filename from grep's output before passing it to the p4 -x - edit command

• The -s option can be useful in automated scripts.

  For example, a script could be written as part of an in-house build process which executes p4 -s commands, discards any output lines beginning with "info:", and alerts the user if any output lines begin with "error:".

• Python developers find the -G option useful for scripting. For instance, to get a dictionary of all the fields of a job whose ID is known, use the following:

  job_dict = marshal.load(os.popen('p4 -G job -o ' + job_id, 'rb'))

  In some cases, it might not be obvious which keys are used by the application. If you pipe the output of any p4 -G invocation to the following script, you will see every record printed out in key/value pairs:

  #!/usr/local/bin/python
  
  import marshal, sys
  
  try:
      num=0
      while 1:
          num=num+1
          print '\n' % num
          dict = marshal.load(sys.stdin)
          for key in dict.keys(): print "%s: %s" % (key,dict[key])
  
  except EOFError: pass

  Python developers on Windows should be aware of potential CR/LF translation issues. In the example above, it is necessary to call marshal.load() to read the data in binary ("rb") mode.

  Tip

  For additional examples and guidance about scripting with this option, see the Support Knowledgebase article, "Using p4 -G".

• The progress indicator requested when you use the -I option is only available with p4 -I submit and p4 -I sync -q

• p4 help is simpler than p4 -c workspace help and provides the same output.

Examples