Perforce 2009.2: Command Reference

P4MERGE

Description

A third-party merge program to be used by p4 resolve's merge option.

Usage Notes

Used by Client?	Used by Server?	Command-Line Alternative	Can be set in P4CONFIG file?
Yes	No	None	Yes

Value if not Explicitly Set

Operating System	Value
All	If the MERGE environment variable (or registry variable on Windows, as set by p4 set) is set, then its value; otherwise, nothing.

Examples

c:\Perforce\p4merge.exe

c:\progra~1\Perforce\p4merge.exe

Notes

The program represented by the program name stored in this variable is used only by p4 resolve's merge option. When p4 resolve calls this program, it passes four arguments, representing (in order) base, theirs, and yours, with the fourth argument holding the resulting merge file.

If the program you use takes its arguments in a different order, set P4MERGE to a shell script or batch file that reorders the arguments and calls the proper merge program with the arguments in the correct order.

If you are running under Windows, you must call a batch file, even if your third-party merge program already accepts arguments in the order provided by Perforce. This is due to a limitation within Windows. For instance, if you want to use a program called MERGE.EXE under Windows, your batch file might look something like this:

SET base=%1
SET theirs=%2
SET yours=%3
SET merge=%4
C:\FULL\PATH\TO\MERGE.EXE %base %theirs %yours %merge