P4 Server file types

P4 Server supports a set of file types that enable it to determine how files are stored by the P4 Server and whether the file can be diffed. When you add a file, P4 Server attempts to determine the type of the file automatically: P4 Server first determines whether the file is a regular file or a symbolic link, and then examines the first part of the file to determine whether it’s text or binary. If any non-text characters are found, the file is assumed to be binary; otherwise, the file is assumed to be text. (Files in Unicode environments are detected differently; see P4 Server file type detection and Unicode.

To determine the type of a file under P4 Server control, issue the p4 opened or p4 files command. To change the P4 Server file type, specify the -tfiletype option. For details about changing file type, refer to the descriptions of p4 add, p4 edit, and p4 reopen in the P4 CLI Reference.

P4 Server supports the following file types:

Keyword	Description	Comments	Stored as
`binary`	Non-text file	Synced as binary files in the workspace. Stored compressed within the depot.	full file, compressed
`symlink`	Symbolic link	P4 Server applications on UNIX, macOS, recent versions of Windows treat these files as symbolic links. On other platforms, these files appear as (small) text files.	delta
`text`	Text file	Synced as text in the workspace. Line-ending translations are performed automatically.	delta
`unicode`	Unicode file	P4 Server operating in Unicode mode support the `unicode` file type. These files are translated into the local character set specified by `P4CHARSET`. P4 Server not in Unicode mode do not support the `unicode` file type. For details, see the Internationalization Notes.	delta, UTF-8
`utf8`	Unicode file	Whether the service is in Unicode mode or not, files that are detected as UTF8 will be stored as UTF8 and synced as UTF8 without being translated by the `P4CHARSET` setting. For details, see the Internationalization Notes.	delta, UTF-8
`utf16`	Unicode file	Whether the service is in Unicode mode or not, files are transferred as UTF-8, and translated to UTF-16 (with byte order mark, in the byte order appropriate for the user’s computer) in the client workspace. For details, see the Internationalization Notes.	delta, UTF-8

See Task streams and Virtual streams.