Shelves

It’s a good idea to check periodically for stale or abandoned shelves. Based on the last time a shelf was accessed, you might decide to delete the shelf.

The output of the p4 -Ztag change -o command includes the access time for shelved files. For example, if you run

p4 -Ztag change -o 38

the output might be:

Copy

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
... Change 38
... Date 2015/10/01 16:54:47
... Client edge-one
... User markm
... Status pending
... Description shelve file

... Files0 //depot/new/code/dma/dmajob.cc
... Type public
... extraTag0 IsPromoted
... extraTagType0 int
... IsPromoted 1
... extraTag1 shelveAccess
... extraTagType1 date
... shelveAccess 2015/10/08 15:53:12

You can use the shelveAccess information on line 15 to determine if a shelved file has been abandoned and needs to be removed.

When a shelf is viewed or modified, its access time is updated if its last access time was longer than the limit specified by the value of the dm.shelve.accessupdate configurable.