This book is about using Perforce. There are many tools within the Perforce ecosystem ranging from clients, to plug-ins for IDEs (Integrated Development Environments), such as Eclipse or Microsoft's Visual Studio.
The focus of this book is the P4V client (Perforce Visual Client). P4V has many graphical and presentation features that make it an ideal client for new users, and can be used on a variety of different operating systems including Windows, Unix/Linux, and Macs.
Chapter 1, Getting Started with Perforce, is an introduction to the technology, terminology, and concepts at the core of Perforce operation. A basic knowledge of these core factors will make it easier to relate your actions to the results you're trying to achieve.
Chapter 2, The P4V GUI, introduces the P4V interface. The chapter focuses on the mechanisms for viewing status, performing actions, and viewing the results of those actions.
Chapter 3, Basic Functions, covers the techniques for adding, modifying, and deleting files within a workspace. It discusses how to do this as an individual and as a member of a team.
Chapter 4, Changelists, describes changelists which are the core record of change within Perforce. The chapter covers how to use changelists for organizing work, communicating with other users, and avoiding problems.
Chapter 5, File Information, is the key to understanding the history of a repository, how a code base has evolved, and what is happening to it now. This chapter covers how to make the most efficient use of the Perforce reporting commands to examine the information associated with a file.
Chapter 6, Managing Workspaces, describes the Perforce model where client programs work with copies of repository files in local storage areas called workspaces. This chapter covers how to establish and maintain the relationship between server copies of files and workspace copies of those same files.
Chapter 7, Dealing with Conflicts, covers how conflict in Perforce refers to the need for a human to resolve issues that may arise from independent modifications of the same repository file. Conflict scenarios are a natural consequence of the flow of development and this chapter addresses the origins of conflicts, and ways of predicting future conflicts, identifying current conflicts, resolving conflicts, and avoiding them.
Chapter 8, Classic Branching and Merging, introduces branching as the key version control technology for managing parallel development. This chapter covers the classic Perforce branching interface that provides you with complete control over the entire range of branching features supporting almost any branching pattern that you can envision.
Chapter 9, Perforce Streams, describes Perforce streams which use the mainline model to support parallel development. This chapter looks at the concept of branch stability and how streams use the merge-down, copy-up paradigm to support stability.
Chapter 10, The P4V User Experience, covers various ways that you can adapt P4V to make your work easier and more productive.
Appendix A, A Demo Server, provides a straightforward, step-by-step setup for running examples that align with the contents of this book. Only a limited level of experience is required to follow these steps.
Appendix B, Command Line, documents the underlying Perforce interfaces and the common set of commands used. This appendix relates P4V features to the underlying commands that implement them as an aid to understanding the automation associated with builds and other activities.
This book does not require the P4V software. Many of the concepts and best practices have standalone descriptions.
However, it is best to have an operational copy of P4V available for follow-along exploration. You can download P4V and server software for free from the Perforce website. A license is not required for the examples in the book. Appendix A, A Demo Server provides straightforward, step-by-step instructions for establishing your own server, a test repository, and the client software.
This book is intended for Perforce beginners although it includes concepts and information that advanced users will find educational. People in our training courses with years of basic user experience are often pleasantly surprised at the number of things they learn or perhaps realize that they hadn't properly understood previously.
Version control tools such as Perforce are traditionally thought of as the domain of software developers. However, anyone who deals with electronic files or "digital assets" can benefit from version control. Digital assets include source code, XML configuration files, documents, graphic files, web pages, IC test patterns, router configurations or almost anything. This means that Perforce and the concepts in this book apply to a wide range of users such as quality assurance engineers, hardware developers, analysts, documentation writers, artists, and designers.
In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text are shown as follows: "We can include other contexts through the use of the include directive."
Any command-line input or output is written as follows:
Perforce client error: Connect to server failed; check $P4PORT. TCP connect to 1248 failed. connect: 127.0.0.1:1248: WSAECONNREFUSED
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "clicking on the Next button moves you to the next screen".
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