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<H2>P4Python: Python interface to the Perforce API</H2></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<H3>Contents</H3>
<OL>
<LI><A href="#intro">Introduction</A>
<LI><A
href="#license">License</A>
<LI><A
href="#support">Support</A>
<LI><A
href="#doc">Documentation</A>
<LI><A
href="#build">
Building P4Python</A>
<LI><A
href="#downloads">Downloads</A>
<LI><A
href="#sample">Sample
Code</A>
<LI><A
href="#lib">
P4Python
Script Library</A>
<LI><A
href="#porting">Porting</A>
<LI><A
href="#credits">Credits</A>
</LI>
<LI><a href="#changelog">Changelog</a></LI></OL><A name=intro></A>
<H3>Introduction</H3>
<P>So, what's it all about? The observant amongst you may notice a distinct
resemblance to
<a href="http://public.perforce.com/guest/tony_smith/perforce/API/Ruby/index.html">
P4Ruby</a> - which is intentional (thanks Tony)! P4Python allows you to write
Python code that interacts nicely and intuitively with a Perforce server. The main features
are:
<UL>
<LI>Get Perforce data and forms in dictionaries and lists
<LI>Edit Perforce forms by modifying dictionaries
<LI>Exception based error handling
<LI>Optionally ignore warnings (like "File(s) up-to-date." on a sync)
<LI>Run as many commands on a connection as you want to (dramatically
improving performance over the spawning of command lines and parsing of
results)</LI></UL>
<h3><A name=license></A>Licence</h3>
<P>This extension is distributed under the terms of <a href="main/LICENSE.txt">this</a>
license. You use it at your own risk. <A
name=support></A>
<H3>Support</H3>P4Python is supported by me personally. I aim to be helpful, but
paying work tends to take priority! You can contact me directly at:
robert at vaccaperna dot co dot uk.
<A name=doc></A>
<H3>Documentation</H3>
If you're new to Python, then start with <a href="http://www.python.org">
www.python.org</a> <A name=build></A>
<p>There is also documentation for <a href="main/P4.html">P4Python</a>. </p>
<H3>Building P4Python</H3>
<H4>1. Download and install Python</H4>Linux users can probably skip this step as
most Linux distributions these days come with Python installed (or on the CD's)
<P>Windows users can download a Windows installer for Python from
<a href="http://www.activestate.com/Products/ActivePython/">ActiveState</a>.
This is currently known to work with 2.3 and 2.4.<P>Otherwise you can download the source for Python from
<a href="http://www.python.org">www.python.org</a> which is the main
Python home page.
<H4>2. Download P4Python</H4>Choose the build of P4Python you want to run. For
now there is just a current release (in the future there may be "stable"
releases).<p>Pick the appropriate file from the <A
href="#downloads">downloads</A>
section.</p>
<P><B>If you chose to use the Windows installer then the process ends with
running the executable.
You're then ready to start using P4Python. </B>What follows is only applicable to those
building P4Python from source.
<H4>3. Get the Perforce API</H4>This step is only required if you're building
P4Python from source.
<P>See the <A
href="#porting">Porting</A>
section below to help you find the right Perforce API build for your platform
(see note re gcc 3).<P>Then go to the <A href="http://www.perforce.com/downloads/perforce/">Perforce
download</A> site and grab the p4api.tar file for your platform. Try to get the
latest available release, but certainly no older than 2001.1.
Please note the API changed in version 2005.2 - for now just tell the API to be
2005.1 compatible (will be updated shortly):<blockquote>
<pre>p4client = p4.P4()
p4client.p4c.SetProtocol("api", "57")</pre>
</blockquote>
<p>Extract the files in the p4api.tar tarfile (WinZip can handle it for Windows
users) into a sub directory called p4api of where the source files are (or edit
setup.py below).</p>
<H4>4. Build and install P4Python</H4>
<P>P4Python uses Distutils (Python 2.2 and later).<Pre> python setup.py install</pre>
should do the trick (requires C++ compiler to be installed).<p>Note that there is
a supplied test harness (though it requires a working Perforce server with a
copy of the training repository to run since it relies on certain history). It
is valid example for how to use functions.</p>
<P> <A name=downloads></A><H3>Downloads</H3>
<H4>Current Builds</H4>
<TABLE border=1>
<TBODY>
<TR>
<TH>Release Type</TH>
<TH>Current</TH>
<TH>Notes</TH>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD>Source Code</TD>
<TD><a href="main/p4python.zip">p4python.zip</a>
</TD>
<TD>Unzip and run "python setup.py install" to build and install</TD>
</TR>
</TBODY></TABLE>
<p>Windows Installers</p>
<TABLE border=1 id="table2">
<TR>
<TH>Release </TH>
<TH>Platform</TH>
<TH>Python Version</TH>
<TH>Installer - just download and run</TH>
</TR>
<tr>
<TD>0.6</TD>
<TD>Windows</TD>
<TD>2.3</TD>
<TD><a href="main/dist/P4Python-0.6.win32-py2.3.exe">
P4Python-0.6.win32-py2.3.exe</a>
</TD>
</tr>
<tr>
<TD>0.6</TD>
<TD>Windows</TD>
<TD>2.4</TD>
<TD><a href="main/dist/P4Python-0.6.win32-py2.4.exe">P4Python-0.6.win32-py2.4.exe</a></TD>
</tr>
<tr>
<TD>0.6</TD>
<TD>Linux</TD>
<TD>2.4</TD>
<TD><a href="main/dist/P4Python-0.6.linux-i386.tar.gz">P4Python-0.6.linux-i386.tar.gz</a></TD>
</tr>
</TABLE>
<H4>Older Releases</H4>
<p>Windows Installers</p>
<TABLE border=1 id="table4">
<TR>
<TH>Release</TH>
<TH>Platform</TH>
<TH>Python Version</TH>
<TH>Installer - just download and run</TH>
</TR>
<tr>
<TD>0.5</TD>
<TD>Windows</TD>
<TD>2.3</TD>
<TD><a href="main/dist/P4Python-0.5.win32-py2.3.exe">
P4Python-0.5.win32-py2.3.exe</a>
</TD>
</tr>
<tr>
<TD>0.5</TD>
<TD>Windows</TD>
<TD>2.4</TD>
<TD><a href="main/dist/P4Python-0.5.win32-py2.4.exe">
P4Python-0.5.win32-py2.4.exe</a></TD>
</tr>
</TABLE>
<P>Other platforms (binaries kindly sent in):<br>
<TABLE border=1 id="table3">
<TBODY>
<TR>
<TH>Release</TH>
<TH>Platform</TH>
<TH>Python Version</TH>
<TH>Built Binary (unpack and copy to appropriate place)</TH>
<TH>Thanks To</TH>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD>0.5</TD>
<TD>Cygwin</TD>
<TD>2.4</TD>
<TD><a href="main/dist/P4Python-0.5.cygwin-1.5.12-i686.tar.gz">
P4Python-0.5.cygwin-1.5.12-i686.tar.gz</a>
</TD>
<TD>Adam Heinz</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD>0.5</TD>
<TD>Linux</TD>
<TD>2.4</TD>
<TD><a href="main/dist/P4Python-0.5.linux-i686.tar.gz">
P4Python-0.5.linux-i686.tar.gz</a></TD>
<TD>Tony Smith</TD>
</TR>
</TBODY></TABLE>
<p>To install from *.tar.gz, unzip the 2 files (p4.py and P4Client.so). Find out where your Python
libraries are located (by running "python -v" usually, or the
following command: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>python -c "import sys, string; print string.join(sys.path, '\n')"</p>
</blockquote>
<p>and copy the 2 files
into:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><python root>/lib/site-packages</p>
</blockquote>
<P>To find out what's changed, read the <a href="main/CHANGELOG.txt">change
log</a>. <A name=sample></A>
<H3>Sample code</H3>
<p>Please note that all functions are documented in the
<a href="main/test/test_p4python.py">test harness</a>. See comments for details.</p>Just a small example to whet your appetite. This small
sample shows how to create a new client workspace based on an existing template.
You can of course construct the view manually but most people who are scripting
client creation will use a template so that seemed like a good example. <PRE> import p4
template = "my-client-template"
client_root = r"c:\work\my-root"
p4c = p4.P4()
p4c.parse_forms() # Important for easy processing of forms like client specs!
p4c.connect()
try:
# Run a "p4 client -t template -o" and convert it into a Python dictionary
client = p4c.fetch_client("-t", template)
# Now edit the fields in the form
client["Root"] = client_root
# Now save the udpated spec and sync it
p4c.save_client(client)
p4c.run_sync()
except:
# If any errors occur, we'll jump in here. Just log them
# and raise the exception up to the higher level
for e in p4c.errors:
print e
raise e</PRE><A name=porting></A>
<H3>Porting</H3>P4Python is as portable as Python and Perforce so porting it is
relatively easy. Most of the porting problems revolve around people not knowing
which build of the Perforce API to use. The key is to match up the compiler used
to build Python with the compiler used to build Perforce and use that compiler to
build P4Python.
<P>P4Python has been built on at least the following platforms: </P>
<UL>
<LI>Linux (gcc 2.9x) - use p4api.tar from <B>bin.linux24x86</B>
<LI>Linux (gcc 3) - use p4api.tar from
<a href="ftp://ftp.perforce.com/perforce/r05.1/bin.linux3x86/">
ftp://ftp.perforce.com/perforce/r05.1/bin.linux3x86/</a> (or equivalent
folder in a later release)<LI>Windows (Visual C++ version 6 and .NET should
be fine) </LI></UL>
<P>Note that P4Python is compatible with older versions of Python and the Perforce
API, so on older platforms you should still be able to get a working build.
However, Python did not include DistUtils package prior to 2.2 so you may need
to download that package to build if you have an old version of Python.<P>
<P><B>If you get "unresolved symbol" errors when building or running P4Python, you
probably used the wrong compiler or the wrong Perforce API build. Pay particular
attention to the GCC version used to build the API and the one installed on your
system.</B></P><A
name=credits></A>
<H3>Credits</H3>Thanks to Mike Meyer for the original code.<p>Thanks to Tony
Smith for producing P4Ruby after which this is modelled.</p>
<h3><a name="changelog">Changelog</a></h3>
<p>See <a href="main/CHANGELOG.txt">CHANGELOG.txt</a></p>
<p><font size="2">File: $Id: //guest/shawn_hladky/P4Python/index.html#1 $</font></p>
</BODY></HTML>
| # | Change | User | Description | Committed | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | 5578 | Shawn Hladky | branching P4Python | ||
| //guest/robert_cowham/perforce/API/python/index.html | |||||
| #13 | 5374 | Robert Cowham | Note re 2005.2 API | ||
| #12 | 5200 | Robert Cowham | Had mistakenly lost various pointers to releases. | ||
| #11 | 5165 | Robert Cowham | Point out where to get gcc 3 p4api. | ||
| #10 | 5101 | Robert Cowham | Updated docs and added new Linux binary. | ||
| #9 | 5060 | Robert Cowham | Tidied TOC | ||
| #8 | 5058 | Robert Cowham | Updated docs. | ||
| #7 | 4964 | Robert Cowham | Saved first version of docs. | ||
| #6 | 4911 | Robert Cowham | Fixed title | ||
| #5 | 4909 | Robert Cowham | Added new installer | ||
| #4 | 4858 | Robert Cowham | Added new binaries. | ||
| #3 | 4770 | Robert Cowham |
Changed example to show better usage. Raise AttributeError if appropriate. |
||
| #2 | 4768 | Robert Cowham | Fix references for TOC etc. | ||
| #1 | 4767 | Robert Cowham | Forgot the most important thing! | ||