Re: git-p4 submit, Can't clobber writable file

[Jing Xue <jingxue@digizenstudio.com>]

(Just a friendly reminder - I believe the convention on this list is "no
top-post.")

On Tue, Dec 02, 2008 at 10:04:20PM -0800, Gary Yang wrote:
> 
> --- On Tue, 12/2/08, Jing Xue <jingxue@digizenstudio.com> wrote:
>
> > You might want to clone to a git working dir different than
> > the p4
> > working dir.
> > 
> > For instance, if your p4 workspace has the working dir set
> > to
> > build_scripts/, try 'git p4 clone //build/scripts
> > build_scripts.git'.
> > 
> > You would then normally work under build_scripts.git/.
> > build_scripts/
> > would only be used by git-p4 at submission time.
>
> So, I have to keep two copies of source tree at my home directory. One
> is for Perforce build_scripts workspace, another is for Git
> build_scripts.git. I normally work at build_scripts.git. But, when I
> need to submit changes to Perforce, I have to copy changed code from
> build_scripts.git to build_scripts.

You don't have to do that, not manually. That's git-p4's job. When you
do 'git p4 submit', it basically:

1. calls 'p4 sync' in the p4 working dir,
2. generates patches from p4/master..HEAD,
3. for each of the patches, applies it in the p4 working dir, and 'p4
submit' it as one changelist.

> Then, p4 submit code into
> Perforce. Is this the only way of using git-p4?  Note: I cannot use
> git-p4 submit at build_scripts. It claims "Cannot clobber writable
> file". Is it a bug of git-p4 or the instruction is not correct?

Git-p4.txt does mention this (although briefly) in the "Submitting"
section:

"git-p4 has support for submitting changes from a git repository back to the
Perforce depot. This requires a Perforce checkout separate from your git
repository..."

Cheers.
-- 
Jing Xue