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<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en">
<head>
  <title>P4Ruby</title>
  <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="docstyle.css" />
</head>
<body>
  <h2>P4Ruby - Programmers Guide</h2>

  <div>
    <a name="_toc"></a>
    <h3>Contents</h3>

    <div class="index">
      <a href="#intro">Introduction</a>
      <a href="#features">Features at a glance</a>
      <a href="#classes">Classes Defined</a>
      <a href="#support">Support</a>
      <a href="#requirements">Requirements</a>
    </div>
  </div>

  <div>
    <a name="intro"></a>
    <h3>Introduction</h3>

    <div class="indent">
      <p>
	P4Ruby is an extension to the <a href="http://www.ruby-lang.org">Ruby</a>
	programming language that allows you to run Perforce commands from 
	within Ruby scripts, and get the results in a Ruby-friendly format.
      </p>
      <p>
	P4Ruby is designed to work in a Ruby-like way as far as possible. It has
	support for Ruby exceptions to make error handling as easy as possible and
	even distinguishes between errors and warnings - allowing you to ignore
	warnings whilst still trapping errors. 
      </p>
      <p>
        If you're new to P4Ruby, the best place to start is with the 
	documentation for the 
	<a href="P4.html">P4 class</a>. This is the main Ruby class defined
	by P4Ruby.
      </p>
    </div>
  </div>

  <div>
    <a name="features"></a>
    <h3>Features at a glance</h3>

    <div>
      <ul>
	<li>
	  Connect once and run several commands.
	</li>
	<li>
	  The output of commands is returned as a Ruby array.
	</li>
	<li>
	  The elements of the array returned are strings or, where appropriate,
	  Ruby hashes.
	</li>
	<li>
	  Tagged mode output (i.e. 'p4 fstat' or 'p4 -Ztag changes') is 
	  returned as a Ruby hash. See 
	  <a href="P4.html#tagged">P4#tagged</a>.
	</li>
	<li>
	  Optionally converts all Perforce forms (changes/clients/labels etc.)
	  into Ruby hashes and back again. This allows you to fetch the 
	  existing definition of an object, alter one or more fields in the hash
	  and use the modified hash to update Perforce. See
	  <a href="P4.html#parse_forms">P4#parse_forms</a>.
	</li>
	<li>
	  Thread-safe and thread-friendly - have multiple instances of
	  the P4 class running in different threads.
	</li>
	<li>
	  Exception-based error handling. Trap P4Exceptions for complete,
	  high-level error handling.
	</li>
	<li>
	  Connect once and run several commands
	</li>
      </ul>
    </div>
  </div>

  <div>
    <a name="classes"></a>
    <h3>Classes Defined</h3>

    <div>
      <ul>
	<li>
	  <a href="P4.html">P4</a>
	  <div class="itemdesc">
	    The main class used for executing Perforce commands. Almost
	    everything you do with P4Ruby will involve this class. If you're
	    new to P4Ruby, start here.
	  </div>
	</li>
	<li>
	  <a href="P4DepotFile.html">P4DepotFile</a>
	  <div class="itemdesc">
	    Utility class allowing quick and easy access to the attributes
	    of a file in the depot. 
	    Returned by <span class="inlinecode">P4#run_filelog</span>.
	  </div>
	</li>
	<li>
	  <a href="P4Exception.html">P4Exception</a>
	  <div class="itemdesc">
	    Used as part of error reporting and is derived from the Ruby 
	    <b>RuntimeError</b> class. 
	  </div>
	</li>
	<li>
	  <a href="P4Integration.html">P4Integration</a>
	  <div class="itemdesc">
	    Utility class allowing quick and easy access to the attributes
	    of an integration record for a revision of a file in the depot.
	    Returned by <span class="inlinecode">P4#run_filelog</span>.
	  </div>
	</li>
	<li>
	  <a href="P4Revision.html">P4Revision</a>
	  <div class="itemdesc">
	    Utility class allowing quick and easy access to the attributes
	    of a revision of a file in the depot. 
	    Returned by <span class="inlinecode">P4#run_filelog</span>.
	  </div>
	</li>
	<li>
	  <a href="P4MergeData.html">P4::MergeData</a>
	  <div class="itemdesc">
	    Class encapsulating the context of an individual merge during
	    execution of a 'p4 resolve'. Passed as a parameter to the 
	    block passed to P4#run_resolve.
	  </div>
	</li>
	<li>
	  <a href="P4Spec.html">P4::Spec</a>
	  <div class="itemdesc">
	    Subclass of hash allowing quick and easy access to the fields
	    in a Perforce form (spec). Also checks that the fields that
	    are set are valid fields for the given type of spec.
	    Returned by 
	    <span class="inlinecode">P4#fetch_&lt;spec_type&gt;</span>.
	  </div>
	</li>
      </ul>
    </div>
  </div>

  <div>
    <a name="support"></a>
    <h3>Support</h3>

    <div class="indent">
      <p>
	Sign up to the 
	<a href="http://maillist.perforce.com/mailman/listinfo/p4ruby">p4ruby mailing list</a> 
	and post your question to the list. Alternatively, you can 
	contact the author <a href="mailto:[email protected]">Tony Smith</a> directly 
	for support. I'll respond as quickly as I'm able. All feedback and 
	suggestions are most welcome.
      </p>
    </div>
  </div>

  <div>
    <a name="requirements"></a>
    <h3>Requirements</h3>

    <div class="indent">
      <p>
	Building P4Ruby requires version 2001.1 or later of the Perforce API and
	a C++ compiler - ideally the same C++ compiler used to build the Perforce 
	API.
      </p>

      <p>
	Running P4Ruby requires a 99.2 or later Perforce server to be of any
	real use to you. Earlier servers did not support tagged output in the 
	same way.
      </p>
      <p>
	The more recent your server, the better as tagged output support is
	continually being improved.
      </p>
    </div>
  </div>
</body>
</html>
# Change User Description Committed
#2 14520 tony Replace old P4Ruby documentation with a RELNOTES file, (and
ultimately, Doug's new manual), and update the MANIFEST to
match (and include the new tests)

I've also removed the old installer files as our new installer
won't use them.
#1 14480 tony Add P4Ruby 1.5944 to main as start-point for the first
productized release of P4Ruby