git-p4
(1)
Name
git-p4 - Import from and submit to Perforce repositories
Synopsis
git p4 clone [<sync options>] [<clone options>] <p4 depot path>...
git p4 sync [<sync options>] [<p4 depot path>...]
git p4 rebase
git p4 submit [<submit options>] [<master branch name>]
Description
Git Manual GIT-P4(1)
NAME
git-p4 - Import from and submit to Perforce repositories
SYNOPSIS
git p4 clone [<sync options>] [<clone options>] <p4 depot path>...
git p4 sync [<sync options>] [<p4 depot path>...]
git p4 rebase
git p4 submit [<submit options>] [<master branch name>]
DESCRIPTION
This command provides a way to interact with p4 repositories
using git.
Create a new git repository from an existing p4 repository
using git p4 clone, giving it one or more p4 depot paths.
Incorporate new commits from p4 changes with git p4 sync.
The sync command is also used to include new branches from
other p4 depot paths. Submit git changes back to p4 using
git p4 submit. The command git p4 rebase does a sync plus
rebases the current branch onto the updated p4 remote
branch.
EXAMPLE
o Create an alias for git p4, using the full path to the
git-p4 script if needed:
$ git config --global alias.p4 '!git-p4'
o Clone a repository:
$ git p4 clone //depot/path/project
o Do some work in the newly created git repository:
$ cd project
$ vi foo.h
$ git commit -a -m "edited foo.h"
o Update the git repository with recent changes from p4,
rebasing your work on top:
$ git p4 rebase
o Submit your commits back to p4:
$ git p4 submit
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COMMANDS
Clone
Generally, git p4 clone is used to create a new git
directory from an existing p4 repository:
$ git p4 clone //depot/path/project
This:
1. Creates an empty git repository in a subdirectory called
project.
2. Imports the full contents of the head revision from the
given p4 depot path into a single commit in the git
branch refs/remotes/p4/master.
3. Creates a local branch, master from this remote and
checks it out.
To reproduce the entire p4 history in git, use the @all
modifier on the depot path:
$ git p4 clone //depot/path/project@all
Sync
As development continues in the p4 repository, those changes
can be included in the git repository using:
$ git p4 sync
This command finds new changes in p4 and imports them as git
commits.
P4 repositories can be added to an existing git repository
using git p4 sync too:
$ mkdir repo-git
$ cd repo-git
$ git init
$ git p4 sync //path/in/your/perforce/depot
This imports the specified depot into refs/remotes/p4/master
in an existing git repository. The --branch option can be
used to specify a different branch to be used for the p4
content.
If a git repository includes branches
refs/remotes/origin/p4, these will be fetched and consulted
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first during a git p4 sync. Since importing directly from p4
is considerably slower than pulling changes from a git
remote, this can be useful in a multi-developer environment.
Rebase
A common working pattern is to fetch the latest changes from
the p4 depot and merge them with local uncommitted changes.
Often, the p4 repository is the ultimate location for all
code, thus a rebase workflow makes sense. This command does
git p4 sync followed by git rebase to move local commits on
top of updated p4 changes.
$ git p4 rebase
Submit
Submitting changes from a git repository back to the p4
repository requires a separate p4 client workspace. This
should be specified using the P4CLIENT environment variable
or the git configuration variable git-p4.client. The p4
client must exist, but the client root will be created and
populated if it does not already exist.
To submit all changes that are in the current git branch but
not in the p4/master branch, use:
$ git p4 submit
To specify a branch other than the current one, use:
$ git p4 submit topicbranch
The upstream reference is generally refs/remotes/p4/master,
but can be overridden using the --origin= command-line
option.
The p4 changes will be created as the user invoking git p4
submit. The --preserve-user option will cause ownership to
be modified according to the author of the git commit. This
option requires admin privileges in p4, which can be granted
using p4 protect.
OPTIONS
General options
All commands except clone accept this option.
--git-dir <dir>
Set the GIT_DIR environment variable. See git(1).
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Sync options
These options can be used in the initial clone as well as in
subsequent sync operations.
--branch <branch>
Import changes into given branch. If the branch starts
with refs/, it will be used as is, otherwise the path
refs/heads/ will be prepended. The default branch is
master. If used with an initial clone, no HEAD will be
checked out.
This example imports a new remote "p4/proj2" into an
existing git repository:
$ git init
$ git p4 sync --branch=refs/remotes/p4/proj2 //depot/proj2
--detect-branches
Use the branch detection algorithm to find new paths in
p4. It is documented below in "BRANCH DETECTION".
--changesfile <file>
Import exactly the p4 change numbers listed in file, one
per line. Normally, git p4 inspects the current p4
repository state and detects the changes it should
import.
--silent
Do not print any progress information.
--verbose
Provide more progress information.
--detect-labels
Query p4 for labels associated with the depot paths, and
add them as tags in git.
--import-local
By default, p4 branches are stored in refs/remotes/p4/,
where they will be treated as remote-tracking branches
by git-branch(1) and other commands. This option instead
puts p4 branches in refs/heads/p4/. Note that future
sync operations must specify --import-local as well so
that they can find the p4 branches in refs/heads.
--max-changes <n>
Limit the number of imported changes to n. Useful to
limit the amount of history when using the @all p4
revision specifier.
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--keep-path
The mapping of file names from the p4 depot path to git,
by default, involves removing the entire depot path.
With this option, the full p4 depot path is retained in
git. For example, path //depot/main/foo/bar.c, when
imported from //depot/main/, becomes foo/bar.c. With
--keep-path, the git path is instead
depot/main/foo/bar.c.
--use-client-spec
Use a client spec to find the list of interesting files
in p4. See the "CLIENT SPEC" section below.
Clone options
These options can be used in an initial clone, along with
the sync options described above.
--destination <directory>
Where to create the git repository. If not provided, the
last component in the p4 depot path is used to create a
new directory.
--bare
Perform a bare clone. See git-clone(1).
-/ <path>
Exclude selected depot paths when cloning.
Submit options
These options can be used to modify git p4 submit behavior.
--verbose
Provide more progress information.
--origin <commit>
Upstream location from which commits are identified to
submit to p4. By default, this is the most recent p4
commit reachable from HEAD.
-M[<n>]
Detect renames. See git-diff(1). Renames will be
represented in p4 using explicit move operations. There
is no corresponding option to detect copies, but there
are variables for both moves and copies.
--preserve-user
Re-author p4 changes before submitting to p4. This
option requires p4 admin privileges.
DEPOT PATH SYNTAX
The p4 depot path argument to git p4 sync and git p4 clone
can be one or more space-separated p4 depot paths, with an
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optional p4 revision specifier on the end:
"//depot/my/project"
Import one commit with all files in the #head change
under that tree.
"//depot/my/project@all"
Import one commit for each change in the history of that
depot path.
"//depot/my/project@1,6"
Import only changes 1 through 6.
"//depot/proj1@all //depot/proj2@all"
Import all changes from both named depot paths into a
single repository. Only files below these directories
are included. There is not a subdirectory in git for
each "proj1" and "proj2". You must use the --destination
option when specifying more than one depot path. The
revision specifier must be specified identically on each
depot path. If there are files in the depot paths with
the same name, the path with the most recently updated
version of the file is the one that appears in git.
See p4 help revisions for the full syntax of p4 revision
specifiers.
CLIENT SPEC
The p4 client specification is maintained with the p4 client
command and contains among other fields, a View that
specifies how the depot is mapped into the client
repository. Git-p4 can consult the client spec when given
the --use-client-spec option or useClientSpec variable.
The full syntax for a p4 view is documented in p4 help
views. Git-p4 knows only a subset of the view syntax. It
understands multi-line mappings, overlays with +, exclusions
with - and double-quotes around whitespace. Of the possible
wildcards, git-p4 only handles ..., and only when it is at
the end of the path. Git-p4 will complain if it encounters
an unhandled wildcard.
The name of the client can be given to git-p4 in multiple
ways. The variable git-p4.client takes precedence if it
exists. Otherwise, normal p4 mechanisms of determining the
client are used: environment variable P4CLIENT, a file
referenced by P4CONFIG, or the local host name.
BRANCH DETECTION
P4 does not have the same concept of a branch as git.
Instead, p4 organizes its content as a directory tree, where
by convention different logical branches are in different
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locations in the tree. The p4 branch command is used to
maintain mappings between different areas in the tree, and
indicate related content. git p4 can use these mappings to
determine branch relationships.
If you have a repository where all the branches of interest
exist as subdirectories of a single depot path, you can use
--detect-branches when cloning or syncing to have git p4
automatically find subdirectories in p4, and to generate
these as branches in git.
For example, if the P4 repository structure is:
//depot/main/...
//depot/branch1/...
And "p4 branch -o branch1" shows a View line that looks
like:
//depot/main/... //depot/branch1/...
Then this git p4 clone command:
git p4 clone --detect-branches //depot@all
produces a separate branch in refs/remotes/p4/ for
//depot/main, called master, and one for //depot/branch1
called depot/branch1.
However, it is not necessary to create branches in p4 to be
able to use them like branches. Because it is difficult to
infer branch relationships automatically, a git
configuration setting git-p4.branchList can be used to
explicitly identify branch relationships. It is a list of
"source:destination" pairs, like a simple p4 branch
specification, where the "source" and "destination" are the
path elements in the p4 repository. The example above relied
on the presence of the p4 branch. Without p4 branches, the
same result will occur with:
git config git-p4.branchList main:branch1
git p4 clone --detect-branches //depot@all
PERFORMANCE
The fast-import mechanism used by git p4 creates one pack
file for each invocation of git p4 sync. Normally, git
garbage compression (git-gc(1)) automatically compresses
these to fewer pack files, but explicit invocation of git
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repack -adf may improve performance.
CONFIGURATION VARIABLES
The following config settings can be used to modify git p4
behavior. They all are in the git-p4 section.
General variables
git-p4.user
User specified as an option to all p4 commands, with -u
<user>. The environment variable P4USER can be used
instead.
git-p4.password
Password specified as an option to all p4 commands, with
-P <password>. The environment variable P4PASS can be
used instead.
git-p4.port
Port specified as an option to all p4 commands, with -p
<port>. The environment variable P4PORT can be used
instead.
git-p4.host
Host specified as an option to all p4 commands, with -h
<host>. The environment variable P4HOST can be used
instead.
git-p4.client
Client specified as an option to all p4 commands, with
-c <client>, including the client spec.
Clone and sync variables
git-p4.syncFromOrigin
Because importing commits from other git repositories is
much faster than importing them from p4, a mechanism
exists to find p4 changes first in git remotes. If
branches exist under refs/remote/origin/p4, those will
be fetched and used when syncing from p4. This variable
can be set to false to disable this behavior.
git-p4.branchUser
One phase in branch detection involves looking at p4
branches to find new ones to import. By default, all
branches are inspected. This option limits the search to
just those owned by the single user named in the
variable.
git-p4.branchList
List of branches to be imported when branch detection is
enabled. Each entry should be a pair of branch names
separated by a colon (:). This example declares that
both branchA and branchB were created from main:
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git config git-p4.branchList main:branchA
git config --add git-p4.branchList main:branchB
git-p4.useClientSpec
Specify that the p4 client spec should be used to
identify p4 depot paths of interest. This is equivalent
to specifying the option --use-client-spec. See the
"CLIENT SPEC" section above. This variable is a boolean,
not the name of a p4 client.
Submit variables
git-p4.detectRenames
Detect renames. See git-diff(1).
git-p4.detectCopies
Detect copies. See git-diff(1).
git-p4.detectCopiesHarder
Detect copies harder. See git-diff(1).
git-p4.preserveUser
On submit, re-author changes to reflect the git author,
regardless of who invokes git p4 submit.
git-p4.allowMissingP4Users
When preserveUser is true, git p4 normally dies if it
cannot find an author in the p4 user map. This setting
submits the change regardless.
git-p4.skipSubmitEdit
The submit process invokes the editor before each p4
change is submitted. If this setting is true, though,
the editing step is skipped.
git-p4.skipSubmitEditCheck
After editing the p4 change message, git p4 makes sure
that the description really was changed by looking at
the file modification time. This option disables that
test.
git-p4.allowSubmit
By default, any branch can be used as the source for a
git p4 submit operation. This configuration variable, if
set, permits only the named branches to be used as
submit sources. Branch names must be the short names (no
"refs/heads/"), and should be separated by commas (","),
with no spaces.
git-p4.skipUserNameCheck
If the user running git p4 submit does not exist in the
p4 user map, git p4 exits. This option can be used to
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force submission regardless.
IMPLEMENTATION DETAILS
o Changesets from p4 are imported using git fast-import.
o Cloning or syncing does not require a p4 client; file
contents are collected using p4 print.
o Submitting requires a p4 client, which is not in the
same location as the git repository. Patches are
applied, one at a time, to this p4 client and submitted
from there.
o Each commit imported by git p4 has a line at the end of
the log message indicating the p4 depot location and
change number. This line is used by later git p4 sync
operations to know which p4 changes are new.
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following
attributes:
+---------------+--------------------------+
|ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
+---------------+--------------------------+
|Availability | developer/versioning/git |
+---------------+--------------------------+
|Stability | Uncommitted |
+---------------+--------------------------+
NOTES
This software was built from source available at
https://java.net/projects/solaris-userland. The original
community source was downloaded from http://git-
core.googlecode.com/files/git-1.7.9.2.tar.gz
Further information about this software can be found on the
open source community website at http://git-scm.com/.
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