<TITLE>Working with Labels</TITLE>
 
A <i>label</i> enables you to mark a set of file revisions for later access. 
For example, release engineers can label the file revisions that comprise a particular 
release of their program. The label can be assigned a meaningful name, like <tt>release2.0.1</tt>. 
The label can be used for <A HREF="sync?help">syncing</a>, <A HREF="branch?help">branching</a>, 
or comparing files. 
<p> To create a label, you must: 
<ol type=1>
  <li>Create the label spec, which defines the name of the label and the <a href="defs?help#labelview">label 
    view</a>. The label view limits the files that can be tagged with the label. 
  <li>Perform an <a href="labelsync?help">Add/Replace files...</a> to apply the 
    label to specigied file revisions. 
</ol>
After you have created the label spec and tagged the revisions using <B>Add/Replace 
files</B>, you can use that label to access those files at a later date. See <a href="editlabel?help">Creating 
and Editing Labels</a> for additional information. 
<p>
<b>Accessing labels</b>
<P> To list labels, click the <B>Labels</B> tab. To display only the labels that 
  contain tagged files in your current path, select the <b>Labels with files in 
  current path</b> checkbox and click <B>Filter</B>. 
<p>
<b>Label Spec Detail</b>
<P> Clicking on a label name displays detailed information, including the label 
  spec's fields. For information about these fields, see <a href="editlabel?help">Creating 
  and Editing Labels</a>. 
<P> To list the files tagged by the current label, including each file's path 
  in the depot, the filetype, and the revision number of the file, choose <b>View 
  files in label</b> from the <b>Action</b> menu 
<p> From this page, you can use also use the <b>Action</b> menu to: 
<ul>
<li><A HREF="editlabel?help">Edit</A> the label spec.
<li><A HREF="deletespec?help">Delete</A> the label spec.
<li><A HREF="labelsync?help">Add or Replace </A> files in a label.
<li> <A HREF="sync?help">Sync</A> the workspace to the files tagged with this label.
<li>Create a new label, using this label as a <A HREF="editlabel?help">template</A>.
</ul>
For information on creating a label without using a template, see <A HREF="editlabel?help">Creating 
and Editing Label Specs</A>. <A NAME=changelist></a> 
<h4>Why not use changelist numbers?</h4>
<p> <a href="label?help#changelist">Changelist numbers</a> are an alternative 
  to labels, if you need to refer to a group of files. Labels share certain important 
  characteristics with changelist numbers, as both refer to particular file sets, 
  and both refer to all the files in the set. But labels have some important advantages 
  over changelist numbers: 
<ul>
<li>The file revisions tagged by a particular label can come from different changelists.
  <li>A changelist number refers to the contents of all the files in the depot at 
    the time the changelist was submitted, but a label can refer to an arbitrary 
    set of files and revisions. 
  <li>The files and revisions tagged by a label can be changed at any point in the labels existence.
<li>Changelists are always referred to by Perforce-assigned numbers, but labels are named by the user.
</ul>