1git-p4import(1) 2=============== 3 4NAME 5---- 6git-p4import - Import a Perforce repository into git 7 8 9SYNOPSIS 10-------- 11`git-p4import` [-q|-v] [--notags] [--authors <file>] [-t <timezone>] <//p4repo/path> <branch> 12 13`git-p4import` --stitch <//p4repo/path> 14 15`git-p4import` 16 17 18DESCRIPTION 19----------- 20Import a Perforce repository into an existing git repository. When 21a <//p4repo/path> and <branch> are specified a new branch with the 22given name will be created and the initial import will begin. 23 24Once the initial import is complete you can do an incremental import 25of new commits from the Perforce repository. You do this by checking 26out the appropriate git branch and then running `git-p4import` without 27any options. 28 29The standard p4 client is used to communicate with the Perforce 30repository; it must be configured correctly in order for `git-p4import` 31to operate (see below). 32 33 34OPTIONS 35------- 36-q:: 37 Do not display any progress information. 38 39-v:: 40 Give extra progress information. 41 42\--authors:: 43 Specify an authors file containing a mapping of Perforce user 44 ids to full names and email addresses (see Notes below). 45 46\--notags:: 47 Do not create a tag for each imported commit. 48 49\--stitch:: 50 Import the contents of the given perforce branch into the 51 currently checked out git branch. 52 53\--log:: 54 Store debugging information in the specified file. 55 56-t:: 57 Specify that the remote repository is in the specified timezone. 58 Timezone must be in the format "US/Pacific" or "Europe/London" 59 etc. You only need to specify this once, it will be saved in 60 the git config file for the repository. 61 62<//p4repo/path>:: 63 The Perforce path that will be imported into the specified branch. 64 65<branch>:: 66 The new branch that will be created to hold the Perforce imports. 67 68 69P4 Client 70--------- 71You must make the `p4` client command available in your $PATH and 72configure it to communicate with the target Perforce repository. 73Typically this means you must set the "$P4PORT" and "$P4CLIENT" 74environment variables. 75 76You must also configure a `p4` client "view" which maps the Perforce 77branch into the top level of your git repository, for example: 78 79------------ 80Client: myhost 81 82Root: /home/sean/import 83 84Options: noallwrite clobber nocompress unlocked modtime rmdir 85 86View: 87 //public/jam/... //myhost/jam/... 88------------ 89 90With the above `p4` client setup, you could import the "jam" 91perforce branch into a branch named "jammy", like so: 92 93------------ 94$ mkdir -p /home/sean/import/jam 95$ cd /home/sean/import/jam 96$ git init-db 97$ git p4import //public/jam jammy 98------------ 99 100 101Multiple Branches 102----------------- 103Note that by creating multiple "views" you can use `git-p4import` 104to import additional branches into the same git repository. 105However, the `p4` client has a limitation in that it silently 106ignores all but the last "view" that maps into the same local 107directory. So the following will *not* work: 108 109------------ 110View: 111 //public/jam/... //myhost/jam/... 112 //public/other/... //myhost/jam/... 113 //public/guest/... //myhost/jam/... 114------------ 115 116If you want more than one Perforce branch to be imported into the 117same directory you must employ a workaround. A simple option is 118to adjust your `p4` client before each import to only include a 119single view. 120 121Another option is to create multiple symlinks locally which all 122point to the same directory in your git repository and then use 123one per "view" instead of listing the actual directory. 124 125 126Tags 127---- 128A git tag of the form p4/xx is created for every change imported from 129the Perforce repository where xx is the Perforce changeset number. 130Therefore after the import you can use git to access any commit by its 131Perforce number, e.g. git show p4/327. 132 133The tag associated with the HEAD commit is also how `git-p4import` 134determines if there are new changes to incrementally import from the 135Perforce repository. 136 137If you import from a repository with many thousands of changes 138you will have an equal number of p4/xxxx git tags. Git tags can 139be expensive in terms of disk space and repository operations. 140If you don't need to perform further incremental imports, you 141may delete the tags. 142 143 144Notes 145----- 146You can interrupt the import (e.g. ctrl-c) at any time and restart it 147without worry. 148 149Author information is automatically determined by querying the 150Perforce "users" table using the id associated with each change. 151However, if you want to manually supply these mappings you can do 152so with the "--authors" option. It accepts a file containing a list 153of mappings with each line containing one mapping in the format: 154 155------------ 156 perforce_id = Full Name <email@address.com> 157------------ 158 159 160Author 161------ 162Written by Sean Estabrooks <seanlkml@sympatico.ca> 163 164 165GIT 166--- 167Part of the gitlink:git[7] suite 168