Perforce 2009.2: Command Reference

p4 add

Synopsis

Open file(s) in a client workspace for addition to the depot.

Syntax

p4 [g-opts] add [-c changelist#] [-f -n] [-t type] file...

Description

p4 add opens files within the client workspace for addition to the depot. The specified file(s) are linked to a changelist; the files are not actually added to the depot until the changelist is sent to the server with p4 submit. The added files must either not already exist in the depot, or exist in the depot but be marked as deleted at the head revision.

To open a file with p4 add, the file must exist in your client workspace view, but does not need to exist in your workspace at the time of p4 add. The file must, however, exist in your workspace when you run p4 submit, or the submission will fail. p4 add does not create or overwrite files in your workspace; if a file does not exist, you must create it yourself.

By default, the specified files are linked to the default changelist. Use -c to specify a different changelist. (Or use the p4 change command to move files from the default changelist to a numbered changelist.)

When adding files, Perforce first examines the typemap table (p4 typemap) to see if the system administrator has defined a file type for the file(s) being added. If a match is found, the file's type is set as defined in the typemap table. If a match is not found, Perforce examines the first 8192 bytes of the file to determine whether it is text or binary, and the files are stored in the depot accordingly. By default, text file revisions are stored in reverse delta format; newly-added text files larger than 10MB are assigned filetype text+C and stored in full. Binary revisions are stored as full files.

The -t filetype flag explicitly specifies a file type, overriding both the typemap table and Perforce's default file type detection mechanism.

To add files containing the characters @, #, *, and %, use the -f flag. This flag forces literal interpretation of characters otherwise used by Perforce as wildcards.

Options

-c changelist	Opens the files for add within the specified changelist. If this flag is not used, the files are linked to the default changelist.
-t filetype	Adds the file as the specified filetype, overriding any settings in the typemap table. Please see the File Types chapter for a list of Perforce file types.
-f	Use the -f flag to force inclusion of wildcards in filenames. See the File Specifications chapter for details.
-n	Preview which files would be opened for add, without actually changing any files or metadata.
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
No	No	open

•	Wildcards in file specifications provided to p4 add are expanded by the local operating system, not by the Perforce server. For instance, the ... wildcard cannot be used with p4 add.

•	In Perforce, there is no difference between adding files to an empty depot and adding files to a depot that already contains other files. You can populate new, empty depots by adding files from a client workspace with p4 add.

•	Do not use ASCII expansions of special characters with p4 add -f. To add the file [email protected], use

p4 add -f [email protected]

If you manually expand the @ sign and attempt to add the file status%40june.txt, Perforce interprets the % sign literally, expands it to the hex code %25, resulting in the filename status%2540june.txt.

Examples

p4 add -t binary file.pdf	Assigns a specific file type to a new file, overriding any settings in the typemap table
p4 add -c 13 *	Opens all the files within the user's current directory for add, and links these files to changelist 13.
p4 add README ~/src/*.c	Opens all *.c files in the user's ~/src directory for add; also opens the README file in the user's current working directory for add. These files are linked to the default changelist.
p4 add -f *.c	Opens a file named *.c for add. To refer to this file in views, or with other Perforce commands, you must subsequently use the hex expansion %2A in place of the asterisk. For more information, see Limitations on characters in filenames and entities.

Related Commands

To open a file for edit	p4 edit
To open a file for deletion	p4 delete
To copy all open files to the depot	p4 submit
To read files from the depot into the client workspace	p4 sync
To create or edit a new changelist	p4 change
To list all opened files	p4 opened
To revert a file to its unopened state	p4 revert
To move an open file to a different pending changelist	p4 reopen
To change an open file's file type	p4 reopen -t filetype