The Perforce Visual Merge Tool, P4Merge, allows users to visualize the differences between file versions. P4Merge uses color coding to simplify the process of resolving conflicts that result from parallel or concurrent development. P4Merge includes the option to automatically merge non-conflicting changes.

Details

Tab spacing and whitespace differences

With P4Merge, users can choose to include or ignore both line ending or whitespace differences.

Line ending options for merged files

Perforce supports Windows (CRLF), Mac (CR), and Unix (LF) line ending conventions.

Support for line numbering

Display line numbers when comparing and merging files.

Character encoding preference

Users can select the appropriate character encoding to use with the merged file.

Run as standalone tool

P4Merge accepts command-line parameters and can be used from non-Peforce applications.

Support for third party merge tools

Perforce client programs can be configured to work with most merge tools by setting a single environment variable (see table below for merge tools that are known to work with Perforce).

Third party merge tools

Product	Style
Perforce Command-Line Client (Perforce Software)1 Perforce's p4 resolve command includes built-in merge capability for the console environment.	Character Based Prompting
Araxis Merge (Araxis Ltd.) 2 Araxis Merge is a two-way and three-way file comparison/merging application with integrated folder synchronization. Features include detailed highlighting of changes within lines, point-and-click merging, automatic merging, and support for MBCS/Unicode.	Two and Three Pane
Guiffy (Guiffy Software) 2 Guiffy is a platform-independent graphical, three-way file comparison and merging tool. Guiffy also supports folder/file tree comparison, merge, and synchronization.	Two and Three Pane
p4merge.tar (Tom Bjorkholm, MYDATA Automation) 2 Simple EMACS merge tool	Text editor

¹Tested and certified by Perforce. Fully supported by Perforce Technical Support. (Certification level 1)
²Known to work by Perforce or Perforce customers. Neither tested nor certified by Perforce. Not supported by Perforce Technical support. (Certification level 2)