为使用 p4api 运行的 Perforce 命令指定全局选项

Question

I am using the Perforce, aka Helix Core, C++ API to programmatically run a Perforce command. How do I specify a global option for the command?

For example, I want to programmatically run the clients command with several global options. If run from a command shell, it would look like the following.

p4 -z tag -F %client% clients -u mikef

The global options I want, -z and -F , are not ones that you can specify via environment variables, as far as I know. But even if you could, I cannot rely on the user to set them.

On a lark, I added the global options to the argument array provided to the ClientApi object. For example:

#include <p4/clientapi.h>
#include "CustomClientUser.h"  // A class I derived from ClientUser

// Connect to server.
StrBuf msg;
Error e;
ClientApi client;
client.SetProtocol( "tag", "" );
client.Init( &e );
if ( e.Test() )
{
  e.Fmt( &msg );
  fprintf( "%s\n", msg.Text() );
  return;
}

// Use my own client user.
CustomClientUser cu;

// Run the command.  Try adding global options at the beginning of the arg array.
char * argv[] = { "-z", "tag", "-u", "td27117" };
int argc = sizeof( argv ) / sizeof( char * );
client.SetArgv( argc, argv );
client.Run( "clients", &cu );

But, that did not work. The error output is what you would expect when you give it a command option it does not understand.

Usage: clients [ -t ] [ -u user ] [ -U ] [ [-e|-E] query -m max ] [ -a | -s serverID ] [ -S stream ]
Invalid option: -z.

Answer 1

The global options are arguments to the client app, not the server. The Run() method is for sending commands/arguments to the server; if you send it the client-side args it won't know what to do with them.

To tell the client to set the "tag" protocol, do:

client.SetProtocol("tag", "");

Note that this must be called before you call Run() since it modifies the protocol that is used by Run() .

If you want to see how the various global options are implemented, you can just look at the p4 source code.

• Here's where the connection settings are set: https://swarm.workshop.perforce.com/files/guest/perforce_software/p4/2018-2/client/clientmain.cc#286
• Here's where protocol variables are set: https://swarm.workshop.perforce.com/files/guest/perforce_software/p4/2018-2/client/clientmain.cc#508
• Here's where the -F flag is implemented: https://swarm.workshop.perforce.com/files/guest/perforce_software/p4/2018-2/client/clientmain.cc#562

Note that most of the global options correspond directly to ClientApi methods, which you can see in the header ( clientapi.h ) or in the documentation: https://www.perforce.com/manuals/v15.1/p4api/chapter.methods.html#clientapi