Fromatting Perforce Output For Simple Scripting

Perforce has a global option -ztag




If you run a normal perforce command like this

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p4 files -m3 ... //depot/da/infra/dmx/main/lib/python/dmx/tnrlib/__init__.py#1 - add change 4491003 (text+kx) //depot/da/infra/dmx/main/lib/python/dmx/tnrlib/audit_check.py#57 - edit change 5716075 (text+kx) //depot/da/infra/dmx/main/lib/python/dmx/tnrlib/css/style.css#1 - branch change 4757380 (text+k)

With the -ztag ...

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p4 -ztag files -m3 ... ... depotFile //depot/da/infra/dmx/main/lib/python/dmx/tnrlib/__init__.py ... rev 1 ... change 4491003 ... action add ... type text+kx ... time 1473325143 ... depotFile //depot/da/infra/dmx/main/lib/python/dmx/tnrlib/audit_check.py ... rev 57 ... change 5716075 ... action edit ... type text+kx ... time 1556850031 ... depotFile //depot/da/infra/dmx/main/lib/python/dmx/tnrlib/css/style.css ... rev 1 ... change 4757380 ... action branch ... type text+k ... time 1494905434

Now, say, I'd like to have perforce report out the following info in 3 columns, separated by :::, like this

1	depotFile ::: revision ::: type

All I need to do is run the following:-

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p42 -ztag -F "%depotFile% ::: %rev% ::: %type%" files -m3 ... //depot/da/infra/dmx/main/lib/python/dmx/tnrlib/__init__.py ::: 1 ::: text+kx //depot/da/infra/dmx/main/lib/python/dmx/tnrlib/audit_check.py ::: 57 ::: text+kx //depot/da/infra/dmx/main/lib/python/dmx/tnrlib/css/style.css ::: 1 ::: text+k

... and here you go :)

Working With Perforce -G (Python Marshalled Object) Option

Most common pitfall is to directly get the output pirnted in stdout and marshal it:-

#!/usr/bin/env python
cmd = 'p4 -G changelists -m 3'
mo = subprocess.Popen(cmd, shell=True, stderr=subprocess.STDOUT, stdout=subprocess.PIPE).communicate()[0]
result = marshal.loads(mo)
pprint(result)

Nope. This won't work correctly.
You will only get the last data in the list of 3 items.

This is the correct way to do it:-

#!/usr/bin/env python
cmd = 'p4 -G changelists -m 3'
mo = subprocess.Popen(cmd, shell=True, stderr=subprocess.STDOUT, stdout=subprocess.PIPE)

result = []
try:
   while 1:
      output = marshal.load(mo.stdout)
      result.append(output)
except EOFError:
   pass
finally:
   mo.stdout.close()

pprint(result)