Setup p4merge as a diff tool for git

If you are already here, you probably know that p4merge is a really amazing tool for visualizing diffs. To set it up with git on an ubuntu system, simply do the following

Download p4merge from their site.
Copy it to a convenient directory. I usually copy to a file called programs
Run the following commands

gunzip p4v.tgz
tar xvf p4v.tar
ln -s /path_to_your_folder/p4v-2014.2-123456/bin/p4merge /usr/local/bin/p4merge

That installs p4merge for you as a command line tool.

Now, to set it up with git, set the following config parameters

git config --global merge.tool p4merge
git config --global mergetool.keepBackup false
git config --global mergetool.p4merge.path /usr/local/bin/p4merge

From then on, to see diffs, you can run the command

git difftool

to see diffs in the working dir vs staged or

git difftool --cached

to see diffs between staged and head.

In case you feel that you are annoyed by the prompts for each file, just set this config

git config --global mergetool.prompt false

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