Moving Perforce folder to another server

Question

How do I move a folder to completely different Perforce depot on a completely different server but preserving history and changes?

Answer 1

You don't really need the help of perforce tech support. If you have administrators, you may need them to set up a target depot and/or provide access, but the basic task is performed using functions available to the general user. Here's what I would do (in a nutshell): If you open a P4V session and select the submitted changelists tab, you can filter this set to show only the changes that relate to the section you want to move. This is the change set you will duplicate on the new depot (or even server) that you want to populate. The idea is that you are unraveling the archive files on one side and winding them up in the identical way at the destination. So the process is simply (1) syncing to the first changelist, (2) integrating that set across to the new location, (3) checking that set in, and (4) repeat for all subsequent changelists in order until done. Obviously this can be scripted. I am currently in the process of working a script up in python, but any decent scripting language with Perforce function libraries will work. A couple of complications: The changelists will be sequentially the same as the originals, but the original times will not be preserved - they will be "current". And of course if there are labels, you'll need to map that out in the new location if you want them preserved.

Answer 2

Splitting and merging portions of Perforce depots from separate servers can be done, but you will need the assistance of Perforce technical support, so contact them!

A substantially simpler solution is to retain the two separate servers, and use a Remote Depot definition so that you can access the files in Server A from client workspaces connected to server B. That way, your users mostly see things as though there was a single server, when in fact there are multiple servers.