Perforce 2009.1: Command Reference

p4 jobs

Synopsis

List jobs known to the Perforce server.

Syntax

p4 [g-opts] jobs [-e jobview] [-i] [-l] [-r] [-m max] [file[rev] ...]
p4 jobs -R

Description

When called without any arguments, p4 jobs lists all jobs stored on the server. You can limit the output of the command by specifying various criteria with flags and arguments. If you specify a file pattern, the jobs listed will be limited to those linked to changelists affecting particular files. The -e flag can be used to further limit the listed jobs to jobs containing certain words.

Jobs are listed in alphanumeric order (or, if you use the -r flag, in reverse alphanumeric order) by name, one job per line. The format of each line is:

jobname on date by user *status* description

The description is limited to the first 31 characters, unless the -l (long) flag is used.

If any of the date, user, status, or description fields have been removed by the Perforce superuser with p4 jobspec, the corresponding value will be missing from each job's output.

To limit the list of jobs to those that have been fixed by changelists that affected particular files, use p4 jobs filespec. The files or file patterns provided may contain revision specifiers or a revision range.

Options

-e jobview	List only those jobs that match the criteria specified by jobview. Please see the Usage Notes below for a discussion of job views.
-i files...	Include jobs fixed by changelists that affect files integrated into the named files.
-l	Output the full description of each job.
-m max	Include only the first max jobs, sorted alphanumerically. If used with the -r flag, the last max jobs are included.
-r	Display jobs in reverse alphabetical order by job name.
-R	Rebuild the job table and reindex each job. Reindexing the table is necessary either when upgrading from version 98.2 or earlier, or when upgrading from 99.1 to 2001.1 or higher and you wish to search your body of existing jobs for strings containing punctuation.
g-opts	See the Global Options section.

Usage Notes

Can File Arguments Use Revision Specifier?	Can File Arguments Use Revision Range?	Minimal Access Level Required
Yes	Yes	list

Job Views

Use p4 jobs -e jobview to limit the list of jobs to those that contain particular words. You can specify that the search terms be matched only in particular fields, or anywhere in the text of the job. You can use jobviews to match jobs by values in date fields, though there are fewer options for dates than there are for straight text.

Text matching is case-insensitive. All alphanumeric strings (including words including embedded punctuation) separated by whitespace are indexed as words.

The jobview ‘word1 word2 ... wordN' can be used to find jobs that contain all of word1 through wordN in any of the job's fields.

Spaces between search terms in jobviews act as boolean AND operations. To find jobs that contain any of the terms (boolean OR), separate the terms with the "|" character.

Ampersands (&) can be used as boolean ANDs as well; the boolean operators bind in the order &, |, space (highest precedence to lowest precedence). Use parentheses to change the grouping order.

Search results can be narrowed by matching values within specific fields with the jobview syntax "fieldname=value". The value must be a single token, including both alphanumeric characters and punctuation.

The wildcard "*" allows for partial word matches. The jobview "fieldname=string*" matches "string", "stringy", "stringlike", and so on.

Date fields can be matched by expressing the jobview date as yyyy/mm/dd or yyyy/mm/dd:hh:mm:ss. If a specific time is not provided, the equality operator (=) matches the entire day.

The usual comparison operators (=, >, <, >=, and <=) are available.

Additionally, you can use the NOT operator (^) to negate the sense of some comparisons. (See Limitations below for details).

To search for words containing characters that are job search expression operators, escape the characters with a backslash (\) character.

The behavior of these operators depends on the type of job field you're comparing against:

Field Type	Use of Comparison Operators in Jobviews
word	The equality operator (=) must match the value in the word field exactly. The relational operators perform comparisons in ASCII order.
text	The equality operator (=) matches the job if the word given as the value is found anywhere in the specified field. The relational operators are of limited use here, since they match the job if any word in the specified field matches the provided value. For example, if a job has a text field ShortDescription that contains only the phrase gui bug, and the jobview is "ShortDesc<filter", the job matches the jobview, because bug<filter.
line	As for field type text, above.
select	The equality operator (=) matches a job if the value of the named field is the specified word. The relational operators perform comparisons in ASCII order.
date	Dates are matched chronologically. If a specific time is not provided, the operators =, <=, and >= match the entire day.

If you're not sure of a field's type, run p4 jobspec -o, which outputs the job specification used at your site. The p4 jobspec field called Fields: contains the job fields' names and datatypes. See p4 jobspec for a discussion of the different field types.

Other Usage Notes

•

The p4 user form has a JobView: field that allows a jobview to be linked to a particular user. After a user enters a jobview into this field, any changelists he creates automatically list jobs that match the jobview in this field. The jobs that are fixed by the changelist can be left in the form, and the jobs that aren't should be deleted.

•	p4 jobs sorts its output alphanumerically by job name, which also happens to be the chronological order in which the jobs were entered. If you use job names other than the standard Perforce names, this ordering may not help much.

•	The -m max -r construct displays the last max jobs in alphanumeric order, not the max most recent jobs, but if you're using Perforce's default job naming scheme (jobs numbered like job001394), alphanumeric job order is identical to order by entry date.

•	You can use the * wildcard to determine if a text field contains a value or not by checking for the jobview "field=*"; any non-null value for field matches.

•	When querying for jobs using the -e jobview option, be aware of your operating system and command shell's behavior for parsing, quoting, and escaping special characters, particularly when using wildcards, logical operators, and parentheses.

Limitations

•	Jobviews cannot be used to search for jobs containing null-valued fields. In other words, if a field has been deleted from an existing job, then the field is not indexed, and there is no jobview that matches this "deleted field" value.

•	The jobview NOT operator (^) can be used only after an AND within the jobview. Thus, the jobviews "gui ^name=joe" and "gui&^name=joe" are valid, while the jobviews "gui|^name=joe" and "^name=joe" are not.

•	The * wildcard is a useful way of getting around both of these limitations.

For instance, to obtain all jobs without the string "unwanted", query for ‘job=* ^unwanted". All jobs will be selected by the first portion of the jobview and logically ANDed with all jobs NOT containing the string "unwanted".

Likewise, because the jobview "field=*" matches any non-null value for field, (and the job field can be assumed not to be null), you can search for jobs with null-valued fields with "job=* ^field=*"

Examples

p4 jobs //depot/proj/file#1	List all jobs attached to changelists that include revisions of //depot/proj/file.
p4 jobs -i //depot/proj/file	List all jobs attached to changelists that include revisions of //depot/proj/file or revisions of files that were integrated into //depot/proj/file
p4 jobs -e gui	List all jobs that contain the word gui in any field.
p4 jobs -e "gui Submitted-By=joe"	List all jobs that contain the word gui in any field and the word joe in the Submitted-By: field.
p4 jobs -e "gui ^Submitted-By=joe"	List all jobs that contain the word gui in any field and any value other than joe in the Submitted-By: field.
p4 jobs -e "window*"	List all jobs containing the word "window", "window.c", "Windows", in any field. The quotation marks are used to prevent the local shell from expanding the "*" on the command line.
p4 jobs -e window.c	List all jobs referring to window.c in any field.
p4 jobs -e "job=* ^unwanted"	List all jobs not containing the word unwanted in any field.
p4 jobs -e "(fast|quick)&date>1998/03/14"	List all jobs that contain the word fast or quick in any field, and have a date: field pointing to a date on or after 3/14/98.
p4 jobs -e "fast|quick" //depot/proj/...	List all jobs that have the word fast or quick in any field, and that are linked to changelists that affected files under //depot/proj.

Related Commands

To create or edit an existing job	p4 job
To attach a job to a particular changelist, indicating that the job is fixed by that changelist	p4 fix
To list all jobs and changelists that have been linked together	p4 fixes
To view all the information about a particular changelist, including the jobs linked to the changelist	p4 describe
To change the format of the jobs used on your server (superuser only)	p4 jobspec
To read information about the format of jobs used on your site (any user)	p4 jobspec -o
To set a default jobview that includes jobs matching the jobview in all new changelists	p4 user