p5 : commands missing from Perforce's p4

This script provides a few commands I miss from Perforce command-line utilities.

usage: p5 [-h] {status,st,reconcile,re,diff,di,update,up} ...

positional arguments:
  {status,st,reconcile,re,diff,di,update,up}
                        Commands
    status (st)         Shows status of workspace files (changed, missing,
                        etc)
    reconcile (re)      Interactively reconcile changes.
    diff (di)           Show diff, including unopened files.
    update (up)         Fetches the latest clientspec, updates client view,
                        runs `p4 sync`. May create workspace if needed.

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit

Commands

p5 reconcile

Interactive reconcile. Uses $EDITOR environment variable for user interaction, which defaults to vi. Works much, much, much faster than P4V's one. It is also much more comfortable to use than builtin p4 reconcile, and is available even with old Perforce servers.

p5 status

Works similar to git status: prints list of changed files in the workspace, including edited but unopened ones.

p5 diff

Shows combined diff similar to p4 diff, but including unopened files that were modified.

p5 update

Updates workspace if necessary, then runs p4 sync.

usage: p5 update [-h] [--force] [--create]

optional arguments:
  -h, --help   show this help message and exit
  --force, -f  Pass `-f` to `p4 sync`
  --new, -n    Create workspace if it does not exist

If there is P5CLIENTSPEC variable in the .perforce file, pointing to a depot file or a local file, fetches contents of that file, replaces whatever client name with current workspace name in every line like //depot/path/... //ClientName/path/..., and rewrites your current client view.

With -n flag, enables creation of new workspace associated with current folder using the name defined by .perforce. Note: the file must exist, P4CLIENT environment variable will not be used for this operation.

In either case, this command runs p4 sync. The -f flag is passed down to p4 sync.

Installation/Configuration

There is Homebrew formula for easy installation/upgrade on OS X:

brew install https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hamstergene/p5/master/homebrew/p5.rb
brew upgrade https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hamstergene/p5/master/homebrew/p5.rb

If you are not using Homebrew or not on OS X, you can clone git repository and symlink p5 where you need it - this is one-file utility. This script depends on python3 and perforce packages. The Homebrew formula from above will automatically install them as dependencies; if you're installing manually, make sure python3 and p4 command are available in PATH.

This script assumes that p4 command line tool is already configured and works from current folder. If it's not, you need to add something like this to your ~/.profile:

export P4PORT=perforce.mycompany.com:1666
export P4USER=MyUsername
export P4CONFIG=.perforce

The last line export P4CONFIG=.perforce is the most essential. For some reason, p4 assumes no default value for it.

Restart terminal or relogin, and create .perforce files in root of each workspace with the following line:

P4CLIENT=current-workspace-name

# optional
# P5CLIENTSPEC=//depot/path/to/client_view_definition.txt
# P5CLIENTSPEC=/path/to/client_view_definition.txt

Then do p4 login and check whether workspace name has been detected correctly by running p4 info from the workspace folder.

Ignoring files with .p4ignore

If the workspace root contains .p4ignore file, it will be used. The format is similar to .gitignore:

• One pattern per line.
• If pattern does not contain '/', it matches filename only.
• If pattern starts with '/', it matches absolute paths
• If the pattern has a '/' but not at the beginning, it matches anywhere in the checkout, so 'generated/' would match foo/generated/ as well as 3rdParth/extras/generaged/
• Patterns are matched using fnmatch (supports * wildcards).
• .p4ignore file itself is not ignored by default. You should add it there youself when you are not going to keep it under version control.

Misc

I also recommend using this in your .profile for improved p4 diff/p5 diff experience:

export P4DIFF='git --no-pager diff --color'
export PAGER='less -R'