Ignoring Files with P4IGNORE

It is often necessary to ignore certain file types from a perforce perspective, they are either derived files that don't need to be in the repository, or they may be large and would harm performance. The P4IGNORE mechanism allows certain files as defined by the P4IGNORE expression syntax to be ignored when adding or reconciling files.

See Perforce Configuration for information on using P4IGNORE files with Helix IPLM.

P4IGNORE Configuration

Perforce P4IGNORE

Perforce provides an environment variable 'P4IGNORE' that points to a filename which has filters based on the P4IGNORE syntax. When working in a particular workspace the file pointed at by P4IGNORE will filter all the p4 add/reconcile activity in the workspace.

P4IGNORE Syntax

See the P4 Command Reference for more information

P4IGNORE syntax (from Perforce Documentation)

- A # character at the beginning of a line denotes a comment.
  You can escape the # comment character with a backslash (\). This allows filenames beginning with # to be ignored.

- A ! character at the beginning of a line line excludes the file specification. These exclusions override rules defined above it in the P4IGNORE file, but may be overridden by later rules.


- A / (or \ on Windows) character at the beginning of a line causes the file specification to be considered relative to theP4IGNORE file. This is useful when the rule must apply to files at particular depots of the directory tree.


- A / (or \ on Windows) character at the end of a line causes the file specification to only match directories, and not files of the same name.


- The * wildcard matches substrings. Like the Perforce wildcard equivalent, it does not match path separators; however, if it is not used as part of a path, the directory scanning nature of the rule may make it appear to perform like the Perforce "..." wildcard.


- The ** wildcard matches substrings including path separators. It is equivalent to the Perforce "..." wildcard, which is not permitted.

Example P4IGNORE File

See Example P4IGNORE file for the suggested P4IGNORE file for use with Cadence data.