Workflow Setup Guide

This guide covers the setup and configuration of Perforce tasks from Jenkins Pipeline scripts and assumes the reader is experienced with Jenkins Pipeline. If you are starting out or unfamiliar Pipeline please read The Jenkins Pipeline documentation:

Basic Populate

Almost all Perforce operations require a Perforce Credential, as in Freestyle Jobs the plugin for Pipeline requires either a Perforce Password Credential or Perforce Ticket Credential. Please refer to the initial Setup guide for details on creating a Perforce Credential.

When using a Perforce Credential with Pipeline it is recommended to set the ID field to a short user friendly name. This might be hidden in the Advanced options depending on the version of your Jenkins server.

The simplest way to populate your Jenkins workspace from Perforce is by using the p4sync DSL. This requires a minimum of three attributes: the Perforce Credential, a populate class and a codeline. The 'Pipeline Syntax' snippet generator can help build the DSL code. Select 'p4sync: P4 Sync' from the dropdown menu and fill out the attribute fields as required.

You only need to provide one codeline: 'Stream Codeline' for streams paths, 'Template Workspace' if you have defined the path in another Workspaces View, or 'Depot path' to refer to a classic depot location in Perforce.

This generated the following snippet...

p4sync(charset: 'none',
  credential: 'phooey1666', 
  populate: [$class: 'AutoCleanImpl', 
    delete: true, 
    modtime: false, 
    pin: '',
    quiet: true,
    replace: true],
  stream: '//streams/st1-main')

and you can paste it into a basic script. For example:

node {
  stage('Sync') {
    // sync files from //streams/st1-main/...
    p4sync(charset: 'none',
      credential: 'phooey1666', 
      populate: [$class: 'AutoCleanImpl', 
        delete: true, 
        modtime: false, 
        pin: '',
        quiet: true,
        replace: true],
      stream: '//streams/st1-main')
  }
}

Mulitple Syncs

If you need more than one sync task in a script you MUST use a different workspace name.

You can control this by customising the 'Workspace Name Format' field. The default value is jenkins-${NODE_NAME}-${JOB_NAME} and will not appear in the generated snippet, however if you change this to jenkins-${NODE_NAME}-${JOB_NAME}-libs you will see a new attribute in the snippet format: 'jenkins-${NODE_NAME}-${JOB_NAME}-libs'.

Advanced Populate

If you require full access to the Populate options available with Freestyle Jobs you can use the General SCM checkout option. Select checkout: General SCM from the dropdown and choose Perforce Software from the SCM dropdown.

This allows full customisation of the Workspace View Mappings, for example:

node {
  stage('Sync') {
    // sync files from //streams/st1-main/...
    checkout([$class: 'PerforceScm', 
      credential: 'phooey1666', 
      populate: [$class: 'AutoCleanImpl', 
        delete: true, 
        modtime: false, 
        parallel: [enable: false, minbytes: '1024', minfiles: '1', path: '/usr/local/bin/p4', threads: '4'], 
        pin: '', 
        quiet: true, 
        replace: true], 
      workspace: [$class: 'ManualWorkspaceImpl', 
        charset: 'none', 
        name: 'jenkins-${NODE_NAME}-${JOB_NAME}', 
        pinHost: false, 
        spec: [allwrite: false, 
          clobber: false, 
          compress: false, 
          line: 'LOCAL', 
          locked: false, 
          modtime: false, 
          rmdir: false, 
          streamName: '', 
          view: '''//depot/libs/${OS}/... //jenkins-${NODE_NAME}-${JOB_NAME}/libs/...
                   //depot/code/... //jenkins-${NODE_NAME}-${JOB_NAME}/code/...'''
        ]
      ]
    ])
  }
}

Using standard Freestyle Jobs steps

You can use the Publish, Tag, Unshelve and Cleanup steps from Freestyle. The are available from the dropdown menu and use the same Configuration dialogs as Freestyle. For example: P4 Publish

p4publish(credential: 'phooey1666', 
  publish: [$class: 'SubmitImpl', 
    delete: false, 
    description: 'Submitted by Jenkins. Build: ${BUILD_TAG}', 
    onlyOnSuccess: false, 
    purge: '', 
    reopen: false], 
  workspace: [$class: 'StreamWorkspaceImpl', 
    charset: 'none', 
    format: 'jenkins-${NODE_NAME}-${JOB_NAME}-publish', 
    pinHost: false, 
    streamName: '//streams/st2-rel1'])

Using a versioned Jenkinsfile

Pipeline supports fetching the DSL script from the SCM. Typically called Jenkinsfile and located in the root of the project. For the P4 Plugin to operate in this mode you need to provide a Perforce Credential and Workspace mapping the location of the Jenkinsfile.

To do this; create a Pipeline project and select 'Pipeline script from SCM', choose 'Perforce Software' for the SCM and fill out the fields as required. For example:

Important recommendations

• Use a unique workspace name for the Jenkinsfile that will not get reused by the sync steps in the script. A postfix of -script will help to identify the workspace's use and make it unique from code sync steps.

• Only map the Jenkinsfile (and perhaps Pipeline libraries) in the workspace view. Jenkins may create an '@script' directory on the master and you don't want to unnecessarily sync code to an area not used for the actual build.

Polling

Jenkins will poll for each sync step in a build script and also for the Jenkinsfile if using the 'Pipeline script from SCM' option. The advanced populate option checkout: General SCM provides check boxes to disable polling (and changelog).

Advanced Polling

Polling requires access to previous build data (build.xml). The P4 Plugin tracks the previous build change using a syncID as a polling operation might iterate over multiple sync steps. The syncID is normally calculated from the client workspace name, but must be unique enough to distinguish between multiple sync steps, but common enough to identify previous builds. For this reason if the client Workspace name contains any of the following variables their values will be ignored when determining the syncID:

• NODE_NAME (which might change between slaves)
• BUILD_NUMBER (which changes for each build)
• EXECUTOR_NUMBER (changes based on the execution thread)

In very rare circumstances a user may want to override the syncID, this can be done by specifying the attribute on a workspace: class.

Environment