p4 resolve // P4 Command Reference

Synopsis

Resolve conflicts between file revisions.

Syntax

p4 [g-opts] resolve [-aoptions] [-Aoptions] [-doptions] [-f -n -N -o -t -v]
   [-c change] [file ...]

Description

Use p4 resolve to combine the contents of two files or file revisions into a single file revision in your workspace. Two situations require the use of p4 resolve before a file can be submitted:

When a simple conflict exists: the revision of a file last synced to the client workspace is not the head revision at the time of the submit.

For example, Alice does a p4 sync followed by a p4 edit of file file.c, and Bob does the same thing. Alice p4 submits file.c, and then Bob tries to submit file.c. Bob’s submit fails because if his version of file.c were to be accepted into the depot, Alice’s changes to file.c would no longer be visible. Bob must resolve the conflict before he can submit the file.
When p4 integrate has been used to schedule the integration of changes from one file (or branch) to another.

The primary difference between these two cases is that resolving a simple file conflict involves multiple revisions of a single file, but resolving for integration involves combining two separate files. In either case:

If the file is of type text, p4 resolve allows the user to use the file in the client workspace instead of the file in the depot, overwrite the file in the client workspace with the file in the depot, or merge changes from both the depot revision and the client workspace revision into a single file.
If the file is of type binary, only the first two options (use the file in the workspace, or overwrite the file in the workspace with the file in the depot) are normally available, because merges generally do not work with binary files.

The output of p4 resolve is primarily diagnostic in nature; files are either resolved against ("vs") another file, copied, merged, edited, branched, added, deleted, moved, or ignored with respect to other files. The actual work performed by p4 resolve is reflected by the changes it makes to files in the client workspace.

Revisions Used to Detect Conflicts

The p4 resolve dialog refers to four file revisions whose meaning depends on whether or not the resolution fixes a simple file conflict or is resolving for integration:

Term	Meaning when Resolving Conflicts	Meaning when Resolving for Integration
yours	The revision of the file in the client workspace	The file to which changes are being propagated (in integration terminology, this is the target file). Changes are made to the version of this file in the client workspace, and this file is later submitted to the depot.
theirs	The head revision of the file in the depot.	The file revision in the depot from which changes are being propagated (in integration terminology, this is the source file). This file is not changed in the depot or the client workspace.
base	The file revision synced to the client workspace before it was opened for edit.	The previously-integrated revision of theirs. The latest common ancestor of both yours and theirs.
merge	A file version generated by Perforce from yours, theirs, and base. The user can edit this revision during the resolve process if the file is a text file.	Same as the meaning at left.

Resolve Options and Details

The interactive p4 resolve dialog presents the following options. Note that the dialog options are not the same as the command line options.

Dialog Option	Short Meaning	What it Does	Available by Default for Binary Files?
`e`	edit merged	Edit the preliminary merge file generated by Perforce.	no
`ey`	edit yours	Edit the revision of the file currently in the workspace.	yes
`et`	edit theirs	Edit the revision in the depot with which the workspace revision conflicts (usually the head revision). This edit is read-only.	yes
`dy`	diff yours	Show diffs between yours and base.	no
`dt`	diff theirs	Show diffs between theirs and base.	no
`dm`	diff merge	Show diffs between merge and base.	no
`d`	diff	Show diffs between merge and yours.	yes
`m`	merge	Invoke the command: `P4MERGE` base theirs yours merge To use this option, you must set the environment variable `P4MERGE` to the name of a third-party program that merges the first three files and writes the fourth as a result. This command has no effect if `P4MERGE` is not set.	no
`?`	help	Display help for `p4 resolve`.	yes
`s`	skip	Don’t perform the resolve right now.	yes
`ay`	accept yours	Accept yours, ignoring changes that may have been made in theirs.	yes
`at`	accept theirs	Accept theirs into the client workspace as the resolved revision. The revision (yours) that was in the client workspace is overwritten. When resolving simple conflicts, this option is identical to performing `p4 revert` on the client workspace file. When resolving for integrate, this copies the source file to the target file.	yes
`am`	accept merge	Accept the merged file into the client workspace as the resolved revision without any modification. The revision (yours) originally in the client workspace is overwritten.	no
`ae`	accept edit	If you edited the file (that is, by selecting “e” from the `p4 resolve` dialog), accept the edited version into the client workspace. The revision (yours) originally in the client workspace is overwritten.	no
`a`	accept	Keep Perforce’s recommended result: if theirs is identical to base, accept yours; if yours is identical to base, accept theirs; if yours and theirs are different from base, and there are no conflicts between yours and theirs; accept merge; otherwise, there are conflicts between yours and theirs, so skip this file	no

Resolution of a file is completed when any of the accept dialog options are chosen. To resolve the file later or to revert the change, skip the file.

To help decide which option to choose, counts of four types of changes that have been made to the file revisions are displayed by p4 resolve:

Diff Chunks: 2 yours + 3 theirs + 5 both + 7 conflicting

The meanings of these values are:

Count	Meaning
`n yours`	`n` non-conflicting segments of yours are different than base.
`n theirs`	`n` non-conflicting segments of theirs are different than base.
`n both`	`n` non-conflicting segments appear identically in both theirs and yours, but are different from base.
`n conflicting`	`n` segments of theirs and yours are different from base and different from each other.

If there are no conflicting chunks, it is often safe to accept Perforce’s generated merge file, because Perforce will substitute all the changes from yours and theirs into base.

If there are conflicting chunks, the merge file must be edited. In this case, Perforce will include the conflicting yours, theirs, and base text in the merge file; it’s up to you to choose which version of the chunk you want to keep.

The different text is clearly delineated with file markers:

>>>> ORIGINAL VERSION file
#n
<text>==== THEIR VERSION file
#m
<text>==== YOUR VERSION file
<text><<<<

Choose the text you want to keep; delete the conflicting chunks and all the difference markers.

Non-Content-Related Resolves

Beyond differences in content, you can also resolve other types of difference between related files: filetype, deletion, branching, and moves and renames. For details, refer to the Helix Versioning Engine User Guide. To constrain the process to one type of resolve, use the -A option.

Option	What is Resolved
`-Aa`	Resolve attributes set by `p4 attribute`.
`-Ab`	Integrations where the source is edited and the target is deleted.
`-Ac`	Resolve file content changes as well as actions.
`-Ad`	Integrations where the source is deleted and target is edited.
`-Am`	Renames and moves.
`-At`	Filetype changes.
`-AQ`	Charset changes.

Each type of resolve is handled separately. For example, if a file has both a filetype conflict and a content conflict, you are prompted separately to specify how each is handled. To avoid file-by-file prompting when the desired outcome is the same for all resolves, include the -at or -ay option following the -A option. The following example illustrates how prompting is handled for different resolves.

Merging //depot/rel/fileb#1
Diff chunks: 1 yours + 0 theirs + 0 both + 0 conflicting
Accept(a) Edit(e) Diff(d) Merge (m) Skip(s) Help(?) ay: m
//depot/main/filez - resolve skipped.
Resolving move to //depot/main/fileb
Filename resolve:
at: //depot/main/fileb
ay: //depot/main/filez

Options

`-aoptions` `-am` `-af` `-as` `-at` `-ay`	Skip the resolution dialog, and resolve the files automatically as follows: `-am`: Automatic Mode. Automatically accept the Perforce-recommended file revision: if theirs is identical to base, accept yours; if yours is identical to base, accept theirs; if yours and theirs are different from base, and there are no conflicts between yours and theirs; accept merge; otherwise, there are conflicts between yours and theirs, so skip this file. `-ay`: Accept Yours, ignore theirs. `-at`: Accept Theirs. Use this option with caution, as the file in the client workspace will be overwritten! `-as`: Safe Accept. If either yours or theirs is different from base, (and the changes are in common) accept that revision. If both are different from base, skip this file. `-af`: Force Accept. Accept the merge file no matter what. If the merge file has conflict markers, they will be left in, and you’ll need to remove them by editing the file.
`-Aoptions` `-Aa` `-Ab` `-Ac` `-Ad` `-At` `-Am`	Action (non-content) resolves: Constrain the type of resolve to branching, deletion, file type change, or move/rename. `-Aa`: Resolve attributes set by `p4 attribute` `-Ab`: Resolve file branching; that is, integrations where the source is edited and the target is deleted `-Ac`: Resolve file content changes `-Ad`: Integrations where the source is deleted and target is deleted `-At`: Filetype changes `-Am`: Move and renames For details, see the Helix Versioning Engine User Guide and Non-Content-Related Resolves.
`-doption`	When merging files, ignore specified differences in whitespace or line-ending convention. (If you use these options, and the files differ by whitespace only, `p4 resolve` uses the text in the workspace file.) `-db`: Ignore whitespace-only changes (for instance, a tab replaced by eight spaces) `-dw`: Ignore whitespace altogether (for instance, deletion of tabs or other whitespace) `-dl`: Ignore differences in line-ending convention
`-f`	Allow already resolved, but not yet submitted, files to be resolved again.
`-n`	List the files that need resolving without actually performing the resolve.
`-N`	Preview the operation with additional information about any non-content resolve actions that are scheduled.
`-o`	Output the base file name and revision to be used during the resolve.
`-t`	Force a three-way merge, even on binary (non-text) files. This allows you to inspect diffs between files of any type, and lets you merge non-text files if `P4MERGE` is set to a utility that can do such a thing.
`-v`	Include conflict markers in the file for all changes between yours and base, and between theirs and base. Normally, conflict markers are included only when yours and theirs conflict.
`-c change`	Limit the scope of the resolve operation to the files opened in the specified changelist number.
`g-opts`	See “Global Options”.

Usage Notes

Can File Arguments Use Revision Specifier?	Can File Arguments Use Revision Range?	Minimal Access Level Required
No	No	`open`

p4 resolve works only with files that have been scheduled for resolve. Three operations schedule files for resolution:
- Integrating the file with p4 integrate or p4 merge.
  
  When scheduling files for resolve, p4 integrate selects the closest common ancestor as the base. The p4 merge command selects the revision with the most edits in common with the source and target.
Submitting an open file that was synced from a revision other then the current head revision; the submit fails, and the file is scheduled for resolve.
Running p4 sync instead of running p4 submit on the open file. Nothing is copied into the client workspace; instead, the file is scheduled for resolve. (The only benefit of scheduling files for resolve with p4 sync instead of a failed submit is that the submit will not fail).

When p4 resolve is run with no file arguments, it operates on all files in the client workspace that have been scheduled for resolve.
If translation errors occur during integrations between text and unicode files, the most likely cause is the presence of non-ASCII characters in the text file. Either remove the non-ASCII characters from the file before integration, or set P4CHARSET to utf8 and attempt the merge again.

Related Commands

To view a list of resolved but unsubmitted files	`p4 resolved`
To schedule the propagation of changes between two separate files	`p4 integrate`
To submit a set of changed files to the depot	`p4 submit`
To copy a file to the client workspace, or schedule an open file for resolve	`p4 sync`

P4 Command Reference (2016.2)

p4 resolve