Perforce

This page contains descriptions of the fields and options available when setting up VCS roots using Perforce. Common VCS Root properties are described here.

P4 Connection Settings

Option	Description
Port	Specify the Perforce server address. The format is `host:port`. For specific environments, P4Host can be specified in the Workspace options belowfor any type of checkout.
Stream	Click this radio button to specify an existing Perforce stream. TeamCity will use this stream to prepare the stream-based workspace, and will use the client mapping from such a workspace. Prior to TeamCity 2017.2, TeamCity supports streams stored one level below the depot name: the format is //streamdepot/streamname. Since TeamCity 2017.2, TeamCity supports deeper directory structure within the root depot: depots with a depth of //DEPOTNAME/1/2/n can be specified in this field. Parameters are supported. For the `StreamAtChange` option, use the Label to checkout field. When this option is used with the checkout on the server mode, the internal TeamCity source caching on the server side is disabled, which may worsen the performance of clean checkouts. Also, with this option, snapshot dependencies builds are not reused. (TW-41898 - fixed in TeamCity 2017.1 ) When Perforce Streams are used with the VCS Checkout Mode, simple checkout rules like `. => sub/directory` are supported. Exclude checkout rules, multiple include rules, or rules like `aaa=>bbb` are not supported. Enable feature branches support (experimental) - select this check box to specify branch streams you want to be monitored for changes in addition to the default one. Enter / Edit the branch specification as a newline-delimited set of rules. The syntax is `+\|-:stream_name` (with the optional * placeholder). When task streams are used for feature branches, TeamCity may miss some changes in task streams until a modifying commit is made, which means that merge commits from the parent stream are not detected until a 'real' commit to the task stream is made (TW-44765).
Client	Click this radio button to directly specify the client workspace name. The workspace must be already created by a Perforce client application like P4V or P4Win. Only the mapping rules from the configured client workspace are used. The client name is ignored. When this option is used with the VCS Checkout Mode mode, the internal TeamCity source caching on the server side is disabled, which may worsen the performance of clean checkouts. Also, with this option, snapshot dependencies builds are not reused. (TW-41898 - fixed in TeamCity 2017.1 )
Client Mapping	Click this radio button to specify the mapping of the depot to the client computer. If you have Client mapping selected, TeamCity handles file separators according to the OS/platform of the build agent where a build is run. To enforce specific line separator for all build agents, use Client or Stream with the `LineEnd` option specified in Perforce instead of Client mapping. Alternatively, you can add an agent requirement to run builds only on a specific platform. Use team-city-agent instead of the client name in the mapping. Example: //depot/MPS/... //team-city-agent/... //depot/MPS/lib/tools/... //team-city-agent/tools/... P rior to TeamCity 10.0 e diting the client mapping for a Perforce VCS root resulted in a Clean Checkout before the next build. A workaround was provided. Since TeamCity 10.0, Clean Checkout on a client mapping change is not enforced for the agent-side checkout in the following cases: when a Perforce client name is used. Changing the Perforce client mapping for the client will not result in a clean checkout when a Perforce stream is used, changing the stream name while keeping the same stream root will not result in a clean checkout If the direct client mapping is changed, a clean checkout will be forced unless the `teamcity.perforce.enable-no-clean-checkout` internal property is set on the server.
Username	Specify the user login name.
Password or Ticket	Specify the password or ticket.
Ticket-based authentication	Check this option to enable ticket-based authentication. This option is enabled by default and not displayed since TeamCity 2017.1

Case-Insensitivity in Checkout Rules

Checkout On Agent Settings

When the agent-side checkout is used, TeamCity creates a Perforce workspace for each checkout directory/VCS root. These workspaces are automatically created when necessary and are automatically deleted after some idle time. It is possible to customize the name generated by TeamCity: add the teamcity.perforce.workspace.prefix configuration parameter at the Configuring Build Parameters page with the prefix in the value.

Option	Description
Workspace options	If needed, you can set here the following options for the http://www.perforce.com/perforce/doc.092/manuals/cmdref/client.html#1040665 command: `Options`, `SubmitOptions`, and `LineEnd`. For specific environments, P4Host can be specified here for any type of checkout.
Run 'p4 clean' for cleanup	Enable this option to clean up your workspace from extra files before a build (since p4 2014.1) When enabled, the `p4 clean` command will be run before `p4 sync command`, unless `p4 sync -f` or `p4 sync -p` is used. See the command reference.
Skip the have list update:	Enable this option not to track files on the Perforce server on sync (always transfer all files to the agent, p4 sync -p)
Extra sync options	Specify additional 'p4 sync' options, like `--parallel`. See command reference.

Perforce Workspace Parameters

With checkout on agent, TeamCity provides environment variables describing the Perforce workspace created during the checkout process. If several Perforce VCS Roots are used for the checkout, the variables are created for the first VCS root. The variables are:

P4USER - same as vcsroot.<VCS root ID>.user parameter
P4PORT - same as vcsroot.<VCS root ID>.port parameter
P4CLIENT - name of the generated P4 workspace on the agent

These variables can be used to perform custom p4 commands after the checkout.

More information: Perforce Workspace Handling in TeamCity

Perforce Proxy Settings

To allow using Perforce proxy with the agent-side checkout, specify the env.TEAMCITY_P4PORT environment variable on the build agent and the agent will take this value as the P4PORT value.

Other Settings

P4 path on the build agent	Specify the path to the Perforce command-line client: `p4.exe` file. Prior to TeamCity 2017.2.2 this path was be used for both the server-side checkout and the agent-side checkout. Since TeamCity 2017.2.2 this field works only on the agent side for agent-side checkout. For the server, the p4 binary should be present in the PATH of the TeamCity server or can be specified via the `teamcity.perforce.customP4Path` internal property). To restore old behavior, the `teamcity.perforce.p4PathOnServerWhitelist` internal property can be used to specify a semi-colon-separated list of allowed p4 paths.
Label/changelist to sync	If you need to check out sources not with the latest revision, but with a specific Perforce label (with selective changes), you can specify this label here. For instance, this can be useful to produce a milestone/release build, or a reproduce build. If the field is left blank, the latest changelist will be used for sync. It is recommended to use the agent-side checkout if you use symbolic labels. With the server-side checkout on label, TeamCity will perform full checkout.
Charset	Select the character set used on the client computer.
Support UTF-16 encoding	Enable this option if you have`UTF-16 files` stored as utf16 Perforce file type in your project. You may want to enable this option if you use server-side checkout and have files of the`utf16` Perforce file type in your depot. Enable this flag for the checked out files to be in the `UTF-16` encoding. Otherwise, such files may be converted to `UTF-8` upon checkout. If you store `UTF-16` files as the `binary` Perforce file type, they will always be checked out "as is", no conversion will be performed.

P4 path on the build agent

Specify the path to the Perforce command-line client: p4.exe file.

Prior to TeamCity 2017.2.2 this path was be used for both the server-side checkout and the agent-side checkout. Since TeamCity 2017.2.2 this field works only on the agent side for agent-side checkout. For the server, the p4 binary should be present in the PATH of the TeamCity server or can be specified via the teamcity.perforce.customP4Path internal property).

To restore old behavior, the teamcity.perforce.p4PathOnServerWhitelist internal property can be used to specify a semi-colon-separated list of allowed p4 paths.

Label/changelist to sync

If you need to check out sources not with the latest revision, but with a specific Perforce label (with selective changes), you can specify this label here. For instance, this can be useful to produce a milestone/release build, or a reproduce build. If the field is left blank, the latest changelist will be used for sync.

Charset

Select the character set used on the client computer.

Support UTF-16 encoding

Enable this option if you haveUTF-16 files stored as utf16 Perforce file type in your project.

You may want to enable this option if you use server-side checkout and have files of theutf16 Perforce file type in your depot. Enable this flag for the checked out files to be in the UTF-16 encoding. Otherwise, such files may be converted to UTF-8 upon checkout.

If you store UTF-16 files as the binary Perforce file type, they will always be checked out "as is", no conversion will be performed.

Perforce Jobs Support

For a changelist which was checked in with one or several associated jobs, TeamCity shows a wrench icon which allows you to view details of the jobs when clicked or hovered over.

Logging

All Perforce plugin operations are logged into teamcity-vcs.log files with category jetbrains.buildServer.VCS.P4 (on an agent or on a server, depending on the operation context). The detailed logging can be enabled with TeamCity Server Logs.

Please refer to a separate page.

Last modified: 20 April 2023