Perforce Tasks User Manual

by

• Les Hughes (leslie.hughes@rubus.com)

Version 1.1 - 2001/01/09

Contents

• Introduction
• The Tasks
• Change History

Introduction

These tasks provide an interface to the Perforce SCM. The org.apache.tools.ant.taskdefs.optional.perforce package consists of a simple framework to support p4 functionality as well as some Ant tasks encapsulating frequently used (by me :-) p4 commands. However, the addition of new p4 commands is a pretty simple task (see the source). Although it is possible to use these commands on the desktop, they were primarily intended to be used by automated build systems.

Note: These tasks require the oro 2.0 regular expression package. Simply download this package and copy the jakarta-oro-2.0.jar file into Ant's lib directory. You will also need the perforce client executable (p4 or p4.exe but not p4win.exe) in your path.

The Tasks

P4Sync	Synchronise a workspce to a depot
P4Change	Request a new changelist from the perforce server
P4Edit	Open files for edit (checkout)
P4Submit	Submit a changelist to the perforce server (checkin)
P4Have	List current files in client view, useful for reporting
P4Label	Create a label reflecting files in the current workspace

General P4 Properties

Each p4 task requires a number of settings, either through build-wide properties, individual attributes or environment variables. These are

Your local installation of perforce may require other settings (e.g. P4PASSWD, P4CONFIG). At the moment, these can only be set outside of Ant, as environment variables.

Examples

Setting in the environment:-

(Unix csh)

setenv P4PORT myperforcebox:1666

P4USER=myp4userid; export P4USER

Using build properties:-

<property name="p4.client" value="nightlybuild"/>

Using task attributes:-

<p4Whatever
	port="myserver:1666"
	client="smoketest"
	user="smoketestdude"
	.
	.
	.
/>

For more information regarding the underlying 'p4' commands you are referred to the Perforce Command Reference available from the Perforce website.

Taskdefs

Standard taskdefs (for you to copy'n'paste)

    <taskdef name="p4sync" classname="org.apache.tools.ant.taskdefs.optional.perforce.P4Sync" />
    <taskdef name="p4change" classname="org.apache.tools.ant.taskdefs.optional.perforce.P4Change" />
    <taskdef name="p4edit" classname="org.apache.tools.ant.taskdefs.optional.perforce.P4Edit" />
    <taskdef name="p4submit" classname="org.apache.tools.ant.taskdefs.optional.perforce.P4Submit" />
    <taskdef name="p4have" classname="org.apache.tools.ant.taskdefs.optional.perforce.P4Have" />
    <taskdef name="p4label" classname="org.apache.tools.ant.taskdefs.optional.perforce.P4Label" />

Task Descriptions

P4Sync

Description:

Synchronise the current workspace with the depot.

Parameters

Examples

<p4sync label="nightlybuild-0.0123" force="yes" />
<p4sync view="//depot/projects/projectfoo/main/src/..." />

P4Change

Description:

Request a new changelist from the perforce server. This task sets the ${p4.change} property which can then be passed to P4Submit or P4Edit.

Parameters

Examples

<p4change />

P4Edit

Description:

Open file(s) for edit. P4Change should be used to obtain a new changelist for P4Edit as, although P4Edit can open files to the default change, P4Submit cannot yet submit it.

Parameters

Examples

<p4edit
	view="//depot/projects/projectfoo/main/src/Blah.java..."
	change="${p4.change}" />

P4Submit

Description:

Submit a changelist, usually obtained from P4Change.

Parameters

Examples

<p4submit change="${p4.change}" />

P4Have

Description:

List handy file info reflecting the current client contents.

Parameters

Examples

<p4have />

P4Label

Description:

Create a new label and set contents to reflect current client file revisions.

Parameters

Examples

<p4label
	name="NightlyBuild:${DSTAMP}:${TSTAMP}" 
	desc="Auto Nightly Build"
/>

Change History