p4merge-visual-studio.md

Using P4Merge with Visual Studio 2015/2017

The diff tool integrated with Visual Studio has been improving with every version. I still prefer dedicated diff/merge tools for the job, however, and P4Merge is my favorite. This small guide describes how to properly integrate P4Merge with Visual Studio 2015.

Note that this only applies when using TFS. If you use git, Visual Studio will use the diff/merge tools configured with git.

Installing P4Merge

The easiest method of installing P4Merge on your computer is with Chocolatey:

choco install -y p4merge

Wrapping the invocation

In order for Visual Studio 2015 to fully integrate with P4Merge, you need to wrap the invocation in two batch scripts:

p4diff.bat

@ECHO OFF
START /WAIT /D "C:\Program Files (x86)\Perforce\" p4merge.exe -dw -nl %6 -nr %7 %1 %2

p4merge.bat

@ECHO OFF
COPY /Y NUL %4
START /WAIT /D "C:\Program Files (x86)\Perforce\" p4merge.exe -dw -nb %8 -nl %6 -nr %7 -nm %9 %3 %1 %2 %4

Save these files somewhere safe, e.g. in the C:\Program Files (x86)\Perforce\ folder.

Configuring Visual Studio

In Visual Studio, go to Options → Source Control → Visual Studio Team Foundation Server and click the Configure User Tools button. Then add these entries:

Compare

Setting	Value
Extension	.*
Operation	Compare
Command	C:\Program Files (x86)\Perforce\p4diff.bat (or where you saved the file)
Arguments	%1 %2 "0" "0" "0" %6 %7

Merge

Setting	Value
Extension	.*
Operation	Merge
Command	C:\Program Files (x86)\Perforce\p4merge.bat (or where you saved the file)
Arguments	%1 %2 %3 %4 "0" %6 %7 %8 %9