Perforce 2009.2: Command Reference

p4 counter

Synopsis

Access, set, or delete a persistent variable.

Syntax

p4 [g-opts] counter countername
p4 [g-opts] counter countername value
p4 [g-opts] counter -d countername
p4 [g-opts] counter -f [ change|job|journal|monitor|security ] value

Description

Counters provide long-term variable storage for scripts that access Perforce. For example, the Perforce review daemon uses a counter (review) that stores the number of the last processed changelist.

When used in the form p4 counter countername, the value of variable countername is returned. When p4 counter countername value is used, the value of variable countername is set to value, and if countername does not already exist, it is created.

The Perforce server uses three counters in the course of its regular operations: change, job, and journal. Superusers can use the -f flag to force changes to these counters. Changes to these counters are not without risk; see the Release Notes for examples of the types of situations in which manually resetting these counters might be appropriate.

You can control server process monitoring by setting the monitor counter to 0 (disable monitoring), 1 (enable monitoring of active processes), or 2 (enable monitoring of both active and idle processes). You must stop and restart the Perforce server for any change in this counter to take effect. After you have enabled process monitoring, you can use p4 monitor to observe activity on the Perforce server.

To configure password strength requirements or to require the use of the ticket-based authentication mechanism, set the security counter to the desired level. You must stop and restart the Perforce server for this change to take effect. See the System Administrator's Guide for details.

Options

-d countername	Delete variable countername from the Perforce server.
-f [change|job|journal]	Force a change to one of three internal counters used by Perforce. Most installations rarely, if ever, need to use this flag.
-f monitor [ 0 | 1 | 2 ]	Server process monitoring off, monitor active processes only, or monitor both active and idle processes. See p4 monitor for details.
-f security [ 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 ]	Set the server security level. See the System Administrator's Guide for details.
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
N/A	N/A	list to display a counter's value; review to set a new value super to use the -f flag

•	If a counter does not exist, its value is returned as zero; counter names are not stored in the database until set to a nonzero value.

•

The last changelist number known to the Perforce server (the output of p4 counter change) includes pending changelists created by users, but not yet submitted to the depot. If you're writing change review daemons, you may also want to know the changelist number of the last submitted changelist, which is the second field of the output of the command:

p4 changes -m 1 -s submitted

•	Counters are represented internally as strings. (Prior to release 2008.1, they were stored as signed ints)

Examples

p4 counter mycounter 123	Set the value of a counter mycounter to 123. If mycounter does not exist, it is created. Requires review access.
p4 counter mycounter	Display the value of mycounter. If mycounter does not exist, its value is displayed as 0. Requires list access.

Related Commands

To list all counters and their values	p4 counters
List and track changelists	p4 review
List users who have subscribed to particular files	p4 reviews