Introducing P4VFS

Helix Core Virtual File Service (P4VFS) allows you to accelerate your work by reducing the initial time you wait when syncing from the depot to your client workspace. You save time, disk space, and network bandwidth because you only download what you need, and only when you need it.

Without P4VFS, the p4 sync command, which corresponds to Get Latest in P4V, downloads both all the file content and the metadata for all the files included in the request.

Placeholders for file content

With P4VFS, your workspace gets file metadata when Retrieving files from the depot with Helix Core Visual Client (P4V) Get Latest or the command-line client p4 sync request.

You might only need to work with a small percentage of the files that mapped to the depot in your client workspace configuration.

A large file might contain many megabytes or gigabytes of content, but the metadata associated with that file might only be a few kilobytes.

The following diagram shows the Helix Core command-line client, P4, sending a request to sync from the Helix Core Server, P4D. The server provides metadata to an intermediary, P4VFS, and the client machine's file system (NTFS) gets a small file placeholder instead of the file content, which might be large. This allows Windows File Explorer to show the location of the file placeholder in the directory tree.

When you use P4V, P4, Windows Explorer, or any other client application that can request file content from the operating system to work with a specific file, P4VFS downloads that file’s content from the Helix Core Server to your client workspace. In this example, when you “open” the specific file you want, the content is downloaded from the P4D Server onto your local computer.

Specify hotfiles that don't create placeholders

Placeholders can make the initial sync operation much faster. However, you might want certain files to be sync'd rather than have placeholders. Hotfiles don't create placeholders. Consider hotfiles for the following situations:

  • Your work is focused on certain files that you want in your workspace as soon as possible when you sync.

  • Certain files are so small that placeholders provide no benefit.

Because the hotfiles are exceptions to altsync, the hotfiles can also benefit from the Delta Transfer feature described at Delta Transfer of large binary files in the Helix Core Server Administration Documentation.

The hotfiles feature requires a 2024.2 server and a 2024.2 client.

Rules for hotfiles

You can set rules that specify which files are hotfiles. To learn more, see p4 hotfiles in Helix Core Command-Line (P4) Reference.

The P4VFS graphical user interface also allows you to create rules for hotfiles.

If you add a rule with the P4VFS graphical user interface, it works in addition to any rules that are specified with the p4 hotfiles command.

However, if you add a rule with an exclusionary path, which begins with the - character, such as -//depot/elm_proj/..., in the P4VFS graphical user interface, it overrides any conflicting rules specified with the p4 hotfiles command.

For example, if the altsync agent associated with P4VFS has the following rule with an exclusionary path:

-//depot/project4/...

it overrides the p4 hotfiles rules for that same path:

HotFiles
//depot/project4/... text <5K
//depot/project4/... binary <1M

Add your hotfile rules

1. To add your rules, in Windows System Tray, right-click the P4VFS icon and click Settings.

2. In the Settings dialog box, enter your rules under Manage Hotfiles Mappings and click Save.

Known limitations

  • Currently incompatible with Helix Sync and P4EXP.

  • P4VFS is available solely on Windows because it depends on Windows-specific APIs. However, Optional: Custom development is about the P4ALTSYNC protocol, which is cross-platform.