Visual Studio integration with p4merge

Integrating Perforce's p4merge with Visual Studio can be a bit tricky, but it doesn't have to be! Using a couple of pre-written batch files and Visual Studio configurations, you'll be up-and-running in no time.

Step 1: Copy the following batch files to your c:\Program Files\Perforce directory.

p4diff.bat is for diffing files
p4merge.bat is for merging files

Step 2: In Visual Studio, navigate to the Configure User Tools dialog.

Launch Visual Studio.
Go to Tools > Options... > Source Control > Visual Studio Team Foundation Server.
Click on Configure User Tools.

options

Step 3: Click Add.

You'll need to do this Add step twice.
...once to configure p4merge for file compare.
...and a second time to configure p4merge for file merge.

configure_user_tools

Step 4: Configure Visual Studio to use p4diff.bat for file compare.

In the Configure Tool dialog, enter the following details.
Extension: .*
Operation: Compare
Command: C:\Program Files\Perforce\p4diff.bat
Arguments: %1 %2 "x" "x" "x" %6 %7

configure_tool_compare

Step 5: Configure Visual Studio to use p4merge.bat for file merging.

In the Configure Tool dialog, enter the following details.
Extension: .*
Operation: Merge
Command: C:\Program Files\Perforce\p4merge.bat
Arguments: %1 %2 %3 %4 "x" %6 %7 %8 %9

configure_tool_merge

Summary

After saving all your changes, you're all set.

The next time you do a file compare or file merge operation in Visual Studio, p4merge will be launched.

The file merge operation uses 3-way merge. The left-most pane is the file on the server, the middle pane is the version you had before you made any modifications and the right-most pane is your modified version of the file. The bottom pane is the merged result of the 3-way merge.

References

Using P4Merge with Visual Studio 2008 and TFS

About the Author

Ray Li

Ray is a software engineer and data enthusiast who has been blogging for over a decade. He loves to learn, teach and grow. You’ll usually find him wrangling data, programming and lifehacking.

Comments 4

Spook
February 4, 2016 at 9:53 am

It looks like that Visual Studio 2015 adds quotes automatically, so they’re no longer needed in the .bat files.

1. Ray Li
  February 7, 2016 at 4:47 pm
  
  Thanks!
  
Pogo
December 19, 2018 at 12:27 am

The links to the batch files are dead, could you fix it?

1. Post
  Author
  
  Ray Li
  January 7, 2019 at 8:37 pm
  
  Fixed. Thanks for reporting this.