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P4 CLI Documentation | 2025.2

# Specify how files are stored

File revisions of binary files are normally stored in full within the depot.

File revisions of text files are normally stored as changes (or deltas) made to text files since the previous revision. This approach is called delta storage, and P4 Server uses RCS format to store its deltas.

The file’s type determines whether full file or delta storage is used.

Some file types are compressed to `gzip` format when stored in the depot. The compression occurs when you submit the file, and decompression occurs when you sync, which copies the file from the depot to your client workspace.

The client workspace always contains the file as it was submitted.

To avoid inadvertent file truncation, do not store binary files as `text`. If you store a binary file as text from a Windows computer and the file contains the Windows end-of-file character `^Z`, only the part of the file up to the `^Z` is stored in the depot.

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