Three Perforce commands can be used only by users with Perforce superuser privileges. These commands allow the superuser to verify files using 128-bit signatures, remove all traces of file from the depot, create multiple depots on the local server, or provide read access to files on other servers.
File Verification by Signature
The p4 verify filenames command can be used to generate 128-bit signatures of each revision of the named files. A list of signatures generated by p4 verify can later be used to confirm proper recovery in case of a crash: if the signatures of the recovered files match the previously saved signatures, the files were recovered accurately.<http://backupvault.com/md5.htm>. File Obliteration
The depot is always growing. Obviously, this is not always desirable: a branch might be performed incorrectly, creating hundreds of unneeded files; or perhaps there are simply a lot of old files around that are no longer being used. p4 delete won't help, since this command marks the file as deleted in its head revision, but leaves the old revisions intact.p4 obliterate filename can be used by superusers to remove all traces of a file from a depot, making the file indistinguishable from one that never existed in the first place. p4 obliterate is so destructive, in fact, that we haven't even told you how it really works yet. p4 obliterate filename only reports on what it will do; to actually destroy the files, use p4 obliterate -y filename. Distributed Depots
Perforce distributed depots allow the p4 client program to access files from multiple depots. These other depots may reside within in the p4d server normally accessed by the p4 client program, or they may reside within other, remote, p4d servers.p4 client's local p4d server program acts as a proxy client to the remote server programs, so the client doesn't need to know where the files are actually stored, and doesn't need direct access to the remote p4d server programs.p4 client program may not add, edit, delete or integrate files that reside in other depots. Distributed depots are supported by extending the local client namespace to include names other than //depot, and by allowing client and branch views to include files from any depot. Defining New Depots
New depots in a server namespace are defined with the command p4 depot depotname. If called with the default depotname depot, the p4 depot command will bring up the following form:
Depot Name: depot Type: local Address: notused Map: depot/... |
When
p4 depot depot is called, the form is filled in with values representing the state of the default depot. Its name, of course, is depot. It resides in the local p4d server namespace; so its type is local, (as opposed to remote). The Map: field indicates where the depot subdirectory is located relative to the root directory of the p4d server program; in this default case, the depot called depot starts in the depot subdirectory directly underneath the root. Defining Local Depots
To define a new local depot (that is, a new depot in the current p4d server program namespace), p4 depot is called with the new depot name, and only the Map: field in the resulting form need be changed. For example, to create a new depot called book with the files stored in the local p4d server namespace in a root subdirectory called manual, the command p4 depot book would be typed, and the resulting form would be filled in as follows:
Depot Name: book Type: local Address: notused Map: manual |
Defining Remote Depots
Defining a new depot on a remote p4d server is only slightly more complicated. The Type: is remote; the server address must be provided in the Address: field, and the Map: field must be given a mapping into the remote depot namespace. p4d servers; his is on host pine, and it's listening on port 1818. Lisa wants to grab Ed's GUI routines for her own use; she knows that Ed's color routine files are located on his p4d server's single depot under the subdirectory graphics/GUI. Lisa's first step towards accessing Ed's files would be to create a new depot. She'll call this depot gui; she'd type p4 depot GUI and fill in the form as follows:
Depot Name: gui Type: remote Address: pine:1818 Map: //depot/graphics/gui/... |
This creates a remote depot called
gui on Lisa's p4d server; this depot maps to Ed's depot's namespace under its graphics/gui subdirectory. The Mapping Field,
The
and What it MeansMap: field is analogous to a client's view, except that the view may contain multiple mappings and the Map: field always contains a single mapping. This single mapping format changes depending on whether or not the depot being defined is local or remote:
p4d server root directory. For example, graphics/gui/... maps to the graphics/gui subdirectory of the p4d server root
//depot/graphic/gui/... would map to the graphic/gui subdirectory of the remote server depot named depot.
..." wildcard on its right side.
//foo refers unambiguously to either the depot foo, the client foo, the branch foo, or the label foo.
p4d server can be accessed simply by using the depot's name wherever the default depot name depot is usually used. This means that any defined depot name can be used in the following ways:
foo of depot bar:
p4 get //bar/foo/...
p4 client form is filled in as follows on client spice, any files from the local depot depot will be mapped to /usr/jake/src/local, and any files from the remote depot foo will be mapped to /usr/jake/src/remote.
Client: spice Description: Created by Jake. Root: /usr/jake/src View: //depot/... //spice/local/... //foo/... //spice/remote/... |
p4 submit to a remote depot.Additionally, files from remote depots can't be used in
p4 filelog or p4 describe, even though these operations are read-only.
import rather than branch. The difference between import and branch is only that, upon submission, the remote files are copied locally. Normally, branch performs a "lazy copy", referring to the source file/revision until a new revision is submitted. Import copies the contents of the source file/revision to the local target.
p4 -d depotname.
p4d server can be listed with the p4 depots command.