Using p4merge as a git mergetool

You’re my hero, Mr. McIntosh

and by && I mean & &

Thanks a lot for the post, but

1)
#!/bin/sh
[ $# -eq 7 ] && /usr/local/bin/p4merge “$2″ “$5″

2)
cmd = p4merge “$BASE” “$LOCAL” “$REMOTE” “$MERGED”

But what does the above line do? Can i use the same thing for GIT on UNIX?
Someone please help

when I use this, it will open a different window for each file in to diff. how do I open it all in 1 p4merge process? I figured this out for merging by googling around, but i’m not sure how to do this for diffing.

I have 3 questions regarding this if you don’t mind?

1) After I “Hit return to start merge resolution tool (p4merge)” it pops straight up with this:

2010-01-08 15:50:36.269 p4merge.real[58490:80b] Can’t open input server /Library/InputManagers/Inquisitor

Any idea what this is and whats wrong? the editor still starts and all seems well but things like this bug me :p

2) despite having trustExitCode set to false, it doesn’t ask me if the merge is complete like it would with say vimdiff?

3) i have used both sets of keepBackup settings (both set to false, in fact, everything is as above) but if still leaves pesky .orig files in my working directory… any ideas?

I have a feeling these are linked, could anyone shed some light? Also quite interested to see the authors answer to W. Andrew Loe III’s post?

Hello Andy,

Please allow me to post here as a follow up to the first result when googling for Git + p4merge. I also thought my observations would spare hairy moments to people landing n your page.

Time has passed since you wrote your blog post. Now Git recognizes p4merge and will no more use the value of mergetool.p4merge.cmd.

The only configuration option Git is going to use is mergetool.p4merge.path eventually.

Also since you posted, Git has gained git-difftool and will do the right thing ™ when the diff tool (or the mergetool) is p4merge. As a consequence, you don’t need your p4diff script anymore. Just remove the external = p4diff configuration section and delete your existing p4diff script.

Finally, here is my p4merge script that takes care of converting relative paths to absolute paths in order to benefit from the launchp4merge shim.

#!/bin/bash

for arg; do [[ $arg = /* ]] || arg=$PWD/$arg; absargs+=("$arg"); done;
/Applications/p4merge.app/Contents/Resources/launchp4merge "${absargs[@]}"

Put it in /usr/local/bin in place of the previous one.

For Windows users who landed here, you’ll notice p4merge.exe doesn’t handle NUL device properly. Here is a p4merge script you have to put in your C:\Program Files(x86)\Git\bin folder (MSYS Git).

#!/bin/bash

NULL=$TMP/$$.NULL
for arg; do [[ $arg = /dev/null ]] && arg=$NULL && echo "" >"$arg"; args+=("$arg"); done;

/c/Program\ Files/Perforce/p4merge "${args[@]}"
[[ -f $NULL ]] && rm $NULL

Hope that helps.

Great article! And even better comments. Just a quick typo fix:

keepBackup = false;

Should probably instead be:

keepBackup = false

The semi-colon seems to be invalid.

As of August 2011, Gregory’s p4merge script works perfectly for me. The only entries in my .gitconfig file that have anything to do with diff or merge are


[merge]
tool = p4merge
[mergetool]
prompt = false


and so far, p4merge works vastly better for me than opendiff. The command ‘git diff’ uses the terminal window, but ‘git difftool’ uses P4Merge. A nice choice to have, both have their uses.

In particular, Unicode characters display without the hack required for opendiff. The files open one at a time without the prompt, and close with command-W, leaving P4Merge running. No temporary files are left behind.

I repeat, if you are tempted to use any diff or merge related lines in .gitconfig not shown here, prove to yourself that you need them, then please post a comment for all of us explaining why they were necessary.

Don’t play Simon Says with anything else found on the web, as Gregory notes it is probably out of date.

(Like most code-related apps, P4Merge looks much better using the Lucida Console font, at a larger font size.)