p4 counter

Synopsis

Access, set, increment, or delete a persistent variable.

Syntax


p4 [g-opts] counter countername
p4 [g-opts] counter [-f] countername value
p4 [g-opts] counter [-f] -d countername
p4 [g-opts] counter [-f] -i countername
p4 [g-opts] counter [-f] -m [pair list]

Description

Counters provide long-term variable storage for scripts that access Perforce. For example, the Perforce review daemon uses a counter (review) that stores the number of the last processed changelist. Counters can be assigned textual values as well as numeric ones.

The command includes the following variants:

  • The variant p4 counter countername returns the value of variable countername.

  • The variant p4 counter countername value sets the value of variable countername set to value. If countername does not already exist, it is created.

  • The variant p4 counter -d countername deletes the counter countername.

  • The variant p4 counter -i countername increments the counter by one and returns the new value.

  • The variant p4 counter -m pair list defines 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.

Perforce uses four counters in the course of its regular operations: change, maxCommitChange, job, and journal. 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.

Options

-d countername

Delete variable countername.

-i countername

Increment variable countername by 1 and return the new value. This option can only be used with numeric counters.

-f

Set or delete counters that are reserved for use by Perforce (listed in p4 help counters).

Never set the change counter to a value that is lower than its current value.

-m pair list

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 - (hyphen) followed by the name. See Examples.

g-opts

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


list to display a counter's value
review to set a new value
super to use the -f option

  • 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 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. If you're writing change review daemons, you might also want 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 submitted

  • The last changelist number successfully submitted (that is, no longer pending) to the Perforce service is held in the maxCommitChange counter.

Examples

p4 counter mycounter 123

Set the value of a counter mycounter to 123. If mycounter does not exist, it is created.

Requires review access.

p4 counter mycounter

Display the value of mycounter. If mycounter does not exist, its value is displayed as 0.

Requires list access.

p4 counter -m firstcounter 5 second counter 4

Set two counters.

p4 counter -m - xset - yset

Delete two counters.

p4 counter -m firstcounter 6 - secondcounter

Set one counter; delete one counter.

Related Commands

To configure the versioning service

p4 configure

To list all configurables and their values

p4 configure show

To list all counters and their values

p4 counters

List and track changelists

p4 review

List users who have subscribed to particular files

p4 reviews