• I'm lazy.

• Properly setup Perforce CLI. You have to be able to login to P4 using its CLI.

• update-last-green.sh - Adds/Updates the tag last-green to the Git commit associated with the Perforce Changelist number provided as argument. Updates the tag in the remote origin.

• patch_for_p4.sh - Given a Git revision range, generate a patch file and a list of files affected by the patch.
• p4_reconcile_files.sh - Given a list of files, reconcile each file in the list using p4 reconcile.

• p4-desc.sh - List files affected by the Perforce changelist with number p4cl.

• create_links.sh - Creates symlinks at the specified location. I place them at ~/bin, e.g.,

$ ./create_links.sh ~/bin
$ ls -la ~/bin
 green-up -> update-last-green.sh
 p4-desc -> p4-desc.sh
 p4-patch -> patch_for_p4.sh
 p4-recon -> p4_reconcile_files.sh

So, I've been working with git-p4 in order to submit to a Perforce depot while doing my daily work with Git.

As I learn move about this workflow I have written a few scripts that save me some typing for common operations during my daily workflow.

• Clone this repo into my ~/bin directory
• I create symbolic links (ln -s or use create_links.sh) for each of the scripts but with shorter names so I won't have to type as much, did I mention I'm lazy?

As part of my daily process I have to sync my Git repo with the latest changes submitted to the Perforce depo and also keep a tag to the last successful build. It usually looks like this:

• Checkout the synchronization branch
• Synchronize with P4 depot
• Find the latest P4 changelist number that builds successfully
• Create/Update tag last-green in the commit corresponding to such changelist
• Update my remote (origin)

Using the script this becomes:

$ ./update-last-green.sh 123123

Many times I'm pairing with someone but for some reason they need to share some changes with me but they don't use Git. So after lecturing them I ask them to shelve their changes so I can get them and apply them to my Git repo.

Running p4 describe usually adds meta information that makes it hard to pipe its output to be processed by other commands like rsync, e.g.

	$ p4 describe <changelist>

	Change 123123 by user@domain on <timestamp>

		Changelist description...

	Jobs fixed ...

		Stuffs....

	Affected files ...

	... //path/to/depot/branch/path/to/file1.xml#3 edit
	... //path/to/depot/branch/path/to/file2.xml#3 edit
	... //path/to/depot/branch/path/to/file3.xml#3 edit

	Differences ...

       More stuffs...

So the script p4-desc.sh cleans up the output so that we can pipe it into rsync to bring those changes in to our Git repo, e.g.,

	$ ./p4-desc.sh <changelist> "... //path/to/depot/"
	./path/to/file1.xml
	./path/to/file2.xml
	./path/to/file3.xml

At the end the whole process using the script looks like this:

• Manually unshelve the wanted changes into a new changelist
  • this step is still manual but can be automated, see p4 unshelve)
• Test overwrite (rsync -avn):
  • $ ./p4-desc.sh <changelist> [<prefix>] | rsync -avn --files-from=- $P4_DEPO/ $GIT_REPO/
• Overwrite (rsync -av):
  • $ ./p4-desc.sh <changelist> [<prefix>] | rsync -av --files-from=- $P4_DEPO/ $GIT_REPO/

Caveats: this probably won't work for files that have been removed, only in files added or modified.

The depot I work with is huge and for some reason when I try to submit using $ git p4 submit it takes forever just to get to the step where I edit my commit message.

In most cases I end up:

• creating a patch file for my changes
• applying that patch in the Perforce depot
• reconciling those files since P4 doesn't keep track of changes in the filesystem
• preparing the CL and submitting using the visual client (P4V).

Here's how you can do the same:

# Generate patch for revision range
$ ./patch_for_p4.sh <abc123>..<abc124>
Patch written to patch-123.diff
List of changes written to changes-123.txt

$ cd $P4_DEPOT
$ git apply $GIT_REPO/patch-123.diff
# Make Perforce aware of the changes to the files in the list
$ ./p4_reconcile.sh $GIT_REPO/changes-123.txt

TODO: Automatically create a P4 CL with the changes in the patch

Here are some of the documents that helped me get it all working. Muchas Gracias!

• Git-P4 Workflow
• Git Internals: the Refspec