Requesting XML output from P4Web

In a browser

To direct P4Web to return output in XML format to a browser:

1. To display the P4 command field, click .
2. In the P4 command field, type the desired command and click the XML radio button.
3. Click Go. XML output for the specified command is displayed in the browser.

From a script

To request XML output from P4Web using a script, specify action code 201 in the URL that you submit. The following example shows how to request XML output in a Perl script using the standard LWP module to issue a web request. P4Web returns its XML output into the variable $page. The example request issues the p4 changes command to obtain detailed information about changelists, limiting the output to 50 changelists using the -m flag.

 use LWP::Simple; 

 my $url = 'http://myserver.perforce.com:8080/p4%20changes%20-m%2050%20-l?ac=201';  

 my $page = get $url; 

Format of P4Web's XML Output

PWeb's XML output is formatted as follows:

• All tag names and attributes are lower case.

• The first tag returned is a <perforce ... > header tag, which has the following attributes:

  Attribute	Description
  command	The p4 command for which output is returned
  server	The host and port of the server that executed the command
  user	Perforce username
  client	Client workspace name
  time	The date and time the XML output was generated (in local P4Web time) Format: Day, DD MMM YYYY HH:MM:SS TMZ

  
  Example of a perforce header:

  <perforce
      command="filelog"
      server="perforcehost:2000"
      user="mrp4"
      client="mrp4_win-mrp4"
      time="Wed, 11 Jun 2008 10:30:17 PDT"> 

• If the command returnes a specification (for example, p4 client -o), a specdef tag follows the header and encloses the unparsed specification.

  Example: <specdef>Client;code:301;rq;ro;seq:1;len:32;;Update;code:302;...;;LineEnd;code:310;type:select;fmt:L;len:12;val:local/unix/mac/win/share;;View;code:311;type:wlist;words:2;len:64;;</specdef>

• Following the header tag (and the specdef tag, if present), is the command tag, which encloses all remaining output.

  Example:

  <filelog> 
     [remaining output]     
  </filelog>

• Recurring items are formatted to wrap all occurrences inside a single tag. For example, multiple file revisions are returned as an instance of a revs tag containing multiple instances of rev tags, as shown in the following example.

  Example:

  <revs>
  
  	<rev value="2" id1="0">
  		 ...
  	</rev>
  
  	<rev value="1" id1="1">
  		 ...
  	</rev>
  
  </revs>

• Each instance of a recurring tag is assigned an ID number, using its id1 attribute.

  Example:

  <rev
      value="20"
      id1="44">
          <change>5592</change>
          <action>edit</action>
          <type>text</type>
   </rev> 

• If a recurring tag contains its own recurring tags, they are assigned an ID number using the id2 attribute.

  Example:

  	<rev value="21" id1="43">
  		<change>5615</change>
  
  		...
  		<desc>Add some examples with spaces in their names</desc>
  		<hows>
  			<how value="branch into" id1="43" id2="0">
  				<file>//depot/testing/job011981/Case/BranchView.cpp</file>
  
  				<srev>#none</srev>
  				<erev>#1</erev>
  			</how>
  			<how value="branch into" id1="43" id2="1">
  				<file>//depot/testing/job011981/Case/dir/BranchView.cpp</file>
  
  				<srev>#none</srev>
  				<erev>#1</erev>
  			</how>
  		</hows>
  	</rev>
  

	<error>Error text...</error>

	<data>Data message...</data>

	<info>Informational message...</info>