GIT-P4(1) 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.

EXAMPLES

+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

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 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.

If there are multiple branches, doing git p4 sync will automatically
use the "BRANCH DETECTION" algorithm to try to partition new changes
into the right branch. This can be overridden with the --branch
option to specify just a single branch to update.

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

To specify a single commit or a range of commits, use:

$ git p4 submit --commit <sha1>
$ git p4 submit --commit <sha1..sha1>

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.

To shelve changes instead of submitting, use --shelve and
--update-shelve:

$ git p4 submit --shelve
$ git p4 submit --update-shelve 1234 --update-shelve 2345

Unshelve

Unshelving will take a shelved P4 changelist, and produce the
equivalent git commit in the branch
refs/remotes/p4-unshelved/<changelist>.

The git commit is created relative to the current origin revision
(HEAD by default). A parent commit is created based on the origin,
and then the unshelve commit is created based on that.

The origin revision can be changed with the "--origin" option.

If the target branch in refs/remotes/p4-unshelved already exists, the
old one will be renamed.

$ git p4 sync
$ git p4 unshelve 12345
$ git show p4-unshelved/12345
<submit more changes via p4 to the same files>
$ git p4 unshelve 12345
<refuses to unshelve until git is in sync with p4 again>

OPTIONS

General options

All commands except clone accept these options.

--git-dir <dir>
Set the GIT_DIR environment variable. See git(1).

-v, --verbose
Provide more progress information.

Sync options

These options can be used in the initial clone as well as in
subsequent sync operations.

--branch <ref>
Import changes into <ref> instead of refs/remotes/p4/master. If
<ref> starts with refs/, it is used as is. Otherwise, if it does
not start with p4/, that prefix is added.

By default a <ref> not starting with refs/ is treated as the name
of a remote-tracking branch (under refs/remotes/). This behavior
can be modified using the --import-local option.

The default <ref> is "master".

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.

--detect-labels
Query p4 for labels associated with the depot paths, and add them
as tags in Git. Limited usefulness as only imports labels
associated with new changelists. Deprecated.

--import-labels
Import labels from p4 into 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>
Import at most n changes, rather than the entire range of changes
included in the given revision specifier. A typical usage would
be use @all as the revision specifier, but then to use
--max-changes 1000 to import only the last 1000 revisions rather
than the entire revision history.

--changes-block-size <n>
The internal block size to use when converting a revision
specifier such as @all into a list of specific change numbers.
Instead of using a single call to p4 changes to find the full
list of changes for the conversion, there are a sequence of calls
to p4 changes -m, each of which requests one block of changes of
the given size. The default block size is 500, which should
usually be suitable.

--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.

-/ <path>
Exclude selected depot paths when cloning or syncing.

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).

Submit options

These options can be used to modify git p4 submit behavior.

--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
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.

--export-labels
Export tags from Git as p4 labels. Tags found in Git are applied
to the perforce working directory.

-n, --dry-run
Show just what commits would be submitted to p4; do not change
state in Git or p4.

--prepare-p4-only
Apply a commit to the p4 workspace, opening, adding and deleting
files in p4 as for a normal submit operation. Do not issue the
final "p4 submit", but instead print a message about how to
submit manually or revert. This option always stops after the
first (oldest) commit. Git tags are not exported to p4.

--shelve
Instead of submitting create a series of shelved changelists.
After creating each shelve, the relevant files are
reverted/deleted. If you have multiple commits pending multiple
shelves will be created.

--update-shelve CHANGELIST
Update an existing shelved changelist with this commit. Implies
--shelve. Repeat for multiple shelved changelists.

--conflict=(ask|skip|quit)
Conflicts can occur when applying a commit to p4. When this
happens, the default behavior ("ask") is to prompt whether to
skip this commit and continue, or quit. This option can be used
to bypass the prompt, causing conflicting commits to be
automatically skipped, or to quit trying to apply commits,
without prompting.

--branch <branch>
After submitting, sync this named branch instead of the default
p4/master. See the "Sync options" section above for more
information.

--commit (<sha1>|<sha1>..<sha1>)
Submit only the specified commit or range of commits, instead of
the full list of changes that are in the current Git branch.

--disable-rebase
Disable the automatic rebase after all commits have been
successfully submitted. Can also be set with
git-p4.disableRebase.

--disable-p4sync
Disable the automatic sync of p4/master from Perforce after
commits have been submitted. Implies --disable-rebase. Can also
be set with git-p4.disableP4Sync. Sync with origin/master still
goes ahead if possible.

HOOKS FOR SUBMIT

p4-pre-submit
The p4-pre-submit hook is executed if it exists and is executable.
The hook takes no parameters and nothing from standard input. Exiting
with non-zero status from this script prevents git-p4 submit from
launching. It can be bypassed with the --no-verify command line
option.

One usage scenario is to run unit tests in the hook.

p4-prepare-changelist
The p4-prepare-changelist hook is executed right after preparing the
default changelist message and before the editor is started. It takes
one parameter, the name of the file that contains the changelist
text. Exiting with a non-zero status from the script will abort the
process.

The purpose of the hook is to edit the message file in place, and it
is not suppressed by the --no-verify option. This hook is called even
if --prepare-p4-only is set.

p4-changelist
The p4-changelist hook is executed after the changelist message has
been edited by the user. It can be bypassed with the --no-verify
option. It takes a single parameter, the name of the file that holds
the proposed changelist text. Exiting with a non-zero status causes
the command to abort.

The hook is allowed to edit the changelist file and can be used to
normalize the text into some project standard format. It can also be
used to refuse the Submit after inspect the message file.

p4-post-changelist
The p4-post-changelist hook is invoked after the submit has
successfully occurred in P4. It takes no parameters and is meant
primarily for notification and cannot affect the outcome of the git
p4 submit action.

Rebase options

These options can be used to modify git p4 rebase behavior.

--import-labels
Import p4 labels.

Unshelve options

--origin
Sets the git refspec against which the shelved P4 changelist is
compared. Defaults to p4/master.

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 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. The clone and sync commands can
consult the client spec when given the --use-client-spec option or
when the useClientSpec variable is true. After git p4 clone, the
useClientSpec variable is automatically set in the repository
configuration file. This allows future git p4 submit commands to work
properly; the submit command looks only at the variable and does not
have a command-line option.

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.

Bugs in the implementation of overlap mappings exist. If multiple
depot paths map through overlays to the same location in the
repository, git p4 can choose the wrong one. This is hard to solve
without dedicating a client spec just for git p4.

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 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 init depot
cd depot
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 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.

git-p4.retries
Specifies the number of times to retry a p4 command (notably, p4
sync) if the network times out. The default value is 3. Set the
value to 0 to disable retries or if your p4 version does not
support retries (pre 2012.2).

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:

git config git-p4.branchList main:branchA
git config --add git-p4.branchList main:branchB

git-p4.ignoredP4Labels
List of p4 labels to ignore. This is built automatically as
unimportable labels are discovered.

git-p4.importLabels
Import p4 labels into git, as per --import-labels.

git-p4.labelImportRegexp
Only p4 labels matching this regular expression will be imported.
The default value is [a-zA-Z0-9_\-.]+$.

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.

git-p4.pathEncoding
Perforce keeps the encoding of a path as given by the originating
OS. Git expects paths encoded as UTF-8. Use this config to tell
git-p4 what encoding Perforce had used for the paths. This
encoding is used to transcode the paths to UTF-8. As an example,
Perforce on Windows often uses "cp1252" to encode path names. If
this option is passed into a p4 clone request, it is persisted in
the resulting new git repo.

git-p4.metadataDecodingStrategy
Perforce keeps the encoding of a changelist descriptions and user
full names as stored by the client on a given OS. The p4v client
uses the OS-local encoding, and so different users can end up
storing different changelist descriptions or user full names in
different encodings, in the same depot. Git tolerates
inconsistent/incorrect encodings in commit messages and author
names, but expects them to be specified in utf-8. git-p4 can use
three different decoding strategies in handling the encoding
uncertainty in Perforce: passthrough simply passes the original
bytes through from Perforce to git, creating usable but
incorrectly-encoded data when the Perforce data is encoded as
anything other than utf-8. strict expects the Perforce data to
be encoded as utf-8, and fails to import when this is not true.
fallback attempts to interpret the data as utf-8, and otherwise
falls back to using a secondary encoding - by default the common
windows encoding cp-1252 - with upper-range bytes escaped if
decoding with the fallback encoding also fails. Under python2 the
default strategy is passthrough for historical reasons, and under
python3 the default is fallback. When strict is selected and
decoding fails, the error message will propose changing this
config parameter as a workaround. If this option is passed into a
p4 clone request, it is persisted into the resulting new git
repo.

git-p4.metadataFallbackEncoding
Specify the fallback encoding to use when decoding Perforce
author names and changelists descriptions using the fallback
strategy (see git-p4.metadataDecodingStrategy). The fallback
encoding will only be used when decoding as utf-8 fails. This
option defaults to cp1252, a common windows encoding. If this
option is passed into a p4 clone request, it is persisted into
the resulting new git repo.

git-p4.largeFileSystem
Specify the system that is used for large (binary) files. Please
note that large file systems do not support the git p4 submit
command. Only Git LFS is implemented right now (see
https://git-lfs.github.com/ for more information). Download and
install the Git LFS command line extension to use this option and
configure it like this:

git config git-p4.largeFileSystem GitLFS

git-p4.largeFileExtensions
All files matching a file extension in the list will be processed
by the large file system. Do not prefix the extensions with ..

git-p4.largeFileThreshold
All files with an uncompressed size exceeding the threshold will
be processed by the large file system. By default the threshold
is defined in bytes. Add the suffix k, m, or g to change the
unit.

git-p4.largeFileCompressedThreshold
All files with a compressed size exceeding the threshold will be
processed by the large file system. This option might slow down
your clone/sync process. By default the threshold is defined in
bytes. Add the suffix k, m, or g to change the unit.

git-p4.largeFilePush
Boolean variable which defines if large files are automatically
pushed to a server.

git-p4.keepEmptyCommits
A changelist that contains only excluded files will be imported
as an empty commit if this boolean option is set to true.

git-p4.mapUser
Map a P4 user to a name and email address in Git. Use a string
with the following format to create a mapping:

git config --add git-p4.mapUser "p4user = First Last <mail@address.com>"

A mapping will override any user information from P4. Mappings
for multiple P4 user can be defined.

Submit variables

git-p4.detectRenames
Detect renames. See git-diff(1). This can be true, false, or a
score as expected by git diff -M.

git-p4.detectCopies
Detect copies. See git-diff(1). This can be true, false, or a
score as expected by git diff -C.

git-p4.detectCopiesHarder
Detect copies harder. See git-diff(1). A boolean.

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 force submission
regardless.

git-p4.attemptRCSCleanup
If enabled, git p4 submit will attempt to cleanup RCS keywords
($Header$, etc). These would otherwise cause merge conflicts and
prevent the submit going ahead. This option should be considered
experimental at present.

git-p4.exportLabels
Export Git tags to p4 labels, as per --export-labels.

git-p4.labelExportRegexp
Only p4 labels matching this regular expression will be exported.
The default value is [a-zA-Z0-9_\-.]+$.

git-p4.conflict
Specify submit behavior when a conflict with p4 is found, as per
--conflict. The default behavior is ask.

git-p4.disableRebase
Do not rebase the tree against p4/master following a submit.

git-p4.disableP4Sync
Do not sync p4/master with Perforce following a submit. Implies
git-p4.disableRebase.

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.

GIT

Part of the git(1) suite

Git 2.48.1 2025-01-13 GIT-P4(1)