Missing perforce reconcile command in p4 tool

Question

I downloaded latest p4 tool, but it missing reconcile command:

$ p4 -V
Perforce - The Fast Software Configuration Management System.
Copyright 1995-2012 Perforce Software.  All rights reserved.
This product includes software developed by the OpenSSL Project
for use in the OpenSSL Toolkit (http://www.openssl.org/)
See 'p4 help legal' for full OpenSSL license information
Version of OpenSSL Libraries: OpenSSL 1.0.1c 10 May 2012
Rev. P4/LINUX26X86_64/2012.2/536738 (2012/10/16).

here is list of supported commands (I removed some lines):

$ p4 help commands
Perforce client commands:

add         Open a new file to add it to the depot
admin       Perform administrative operations on the server
annotate    Print file lines along with their revisions
archive     Archive obsolete revisions to archive depots.
...
pull        Cause satellite to pull journal or file data from master
rename      Explains how to rename files
reopen      Change the type or changelist number of an opened file
replicate   Poll for journal changes and apply to another server
resolve     Merge open files with other revisions or files
resolved    Show files that have been merged but not submitted
restore     Restore archived revisions to their original location.
revert      Discard changes from an opened file
review      List and track changelists (for the review daemon)
reviews     Show what users are subscribed to review files
set         Set variables in the registry (Windows only)
shelve      Store files from a pending changelist into the depot
sizes       Display size information for files in the depot
submit      Submit open files to the depot
sync        Synchronize the client with its view of the depot
tag         Tag files with a label
tickets     Display list of session tickets for this user
...
workspaces  Display list of known clients
where       Show how file names map through the client view

Commands reconcile and status are missing. Server version is 2010.2/347035 and it can't be upgraded since it located at customer side and manages hundreds depots.

From my point of view - reconcile command should be completely client-side, so it shouldn't depend on server version. Or I'm wrong? What is the reason why these commands are missing?

EDIT: In P4V client I'm able to run similar command Reconcile offline work and it works on our servers.

Answer 1

Some Perforce features only require an updated server; some require an updated client; some require both. Each new feature's requirements are described in the release notes here:

http://www.perforce.com/perforce/doc.current/user/relnotes.txt

The release notes use a coding mechanism, where a new feature is marked with 1, 2, or 3 asterisks. As noted in the release notes:

* -- requires new p4 client program    
** -- requires new p4d server program    
*** -- requires new p4p proxy program

So, in the case of reconcile, the release notes list it as follows:

#367753 (Bug #68, #889, #989) ** *
    A new command 'p4 reconcile' allows users to reconcile client
    with offline work. The command ...

Note that this line shows "** *" at the end; namely, both a new client and a new server are required. The 367753 at the front of the note indicates that both the server and client must be at version 367753 or later.

So that's how you can tell whether you need a new client, or a new server, or both, for a particular Perforce feature.

Answer 2

That's because your P4 version is too old. reconcile was introduced in a 2012 release.

http://www.perforce.com/blog/120126/new-20121-p4reconcile-p4status

I believe you need both the server and the client side to support a new feature - I could be wrong, but since you have a later client, and I have experienced similar "this should just be a client thing" that require the server to support it as well (it was 4 years since I used perforce, so excuse me if I don't remember exactly which feature it was that didn't work because although the client supported it, the server didnt)