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