Intro

vp4 does the following:

• Interact with perforce without leaving Vim
• Automatically open files for edit
• Ridiculously functional annotation by adding the date, user, and changelist description for each chunk of code
• Fantastical diffing, including vs depot, vs shelved, vs previous rev
• File history browsing; Make Vim a Perforce time machine
• Depot browsing with sync support

Install

Via plugin manager vim-plug

recommended

If using vim-plug (recommended), add the following to the list of plugins in your vimrc:

Plug 'ngemily/vim-vp4'

Manual

Download, unzip, and copy into ~/.vim as following:

cp autoload/vp4.vim ~/.vim/autoload/
cp doc/vp4.txt ~/.vim/doc/
cp plugin/vp4.vim ~/.vim/plugin/

Generate helptags by running the following in vim:

:helptags ~/.vim/doc

Commands

Analysis

These commands query and display information about a file.

:[range]Vp4Annotate

Opens a scrollbound split showing the changelist where each line was last modified, and the date, user, and description of the changelist. This feature is slow on large files with many different last changes. To speed it up, visually select lines to fully annotate (recommended), or use |g:vp4_annotate_simple| to show only the changelist number. q exits.

Opens a view like

    +----------------------------------+------------------------+
    | <Description> <date> <user> <cl> | for (auto elem : l) {  |
    | <Description> <date> <user> <cl> |     std::cout << elem; |
    |                ...               |          ...           |
    +----------------------------------+------------------------+
    | :Vp4Annotate                                              |
    +----------------------------------+------------------------+

Note: Annotations will be misaligned on files that are currently being edited. This is because p4 annotate works only submitted revisions of files. To workaround this, it is suggested to open the last submitted revision of the filelog using :Vp4Filelog and run :Vp4Annotate on that.

:Vp4Diff [s][p][@{cl}][#{rev}]

With no arguments, the depot version of the current file in a vertical split, in diff mode. Hit q to exit.

• With [s] diff with shelved in current changelist. Only available if file is open for edit and shelved.
• With [p] diff with previous version. Available on any file that exists in the depot.
• With [@{cl}] diff with shelved in changelist {cl}. Available on any file that exists in the depot, provided it is actually shelved in changelist.
• With [#{rev}] diff with revision {rev}.

:Vp4Filelog

Populate the quick-fix or location list with the past revisions of this file. The file is not actually retrieved from the server until it is opened. Lists in chronologically reverse order.

Unset g:vp4_open_loclist to prevent the location list from being opened automatically. Set g:vp4_filelog_max to limit the number of revisions listed.

Change specification

These commands perform actions on changelists.

:Vp4Change

Opens the change specification in a new split. Equivalent to p4 change -o if current file is not already opened in a changelist and p4 change -o -c {cl} if already opened in a changelist. Use the write :w command to make the change, quit :q to abort.

:Vp4Describe

Opens a preview window containing a description of the changelist in which the current file is open, obtained from p4 describe <cl>

:Vp4Shelve[!]

Calls the shelve command for the current file, for the changelist in which it is currently open. Not available unless the file is open in a named changelist (i.e. not the default changelist). With [!] performs the command with -f, overwriting any existing shelved version.

File editing

These commands perform actions on files that alter their state in Perforce.

:Vp4Add

Opens current file for add.

:Vp4Delete[!]

Opens current file for delete. Unloads current buffer. Confirms before doing so; use [!] to skip confirmation.

:Vp4Edit

Opens current file for edit.

:Vp4Reopen

Move the current file to a different changelist. Lists all open changelists and prompts for a selection.

:Vp4Revert[!]

Reverts current file. Confirms before doing so. Use [!] to skip confirmation.

Passive Features

Prompt for edit

When writing a file, set g:vp4_prompt_on_write to enable prompt on write to p4 edit the file.

Open depot file

Set g:vp4_allow_open_depot_file to allow vim to be invoked on a depot path specification, like vim //main/foo/bar/baz.cpp where:

• if the file has been synced into the workspace, open the local file
• otherwise, fetch the file contents from server

Credits

This plugin was heavily inspired by vim-fugitive. Additionally, the author was helped greatly by the book Learn Vimscript the Hard Way and Vim's excellent built-in documentation.