Renaming workspace root path in perforce

Question

I have two perforce workspace roots in the same directory on Windows. For example:

C:\Perforce_windows_workspaces\wkspc1

C:\Perforce_windows_workspaces\wkspc2

I need to rename the folder "Perforce_windows_workspaces" to something smaller (say p4wkspcs), so that the new paths to the roots will be:

C:\p4wkspcs\wkspc1

C:\p4wkspcs\wkspc2

respectively.

Will renaming the folder directly in the file system lead to any issues in the root mappings? If so, how can I go about reflecting those changes in the P4V application?

Answer 1

Definition form of Perforce workspace contains root directory field that can be changed.

To change the workspace root without transferring all data from perforce do following steps:

1. Go to P4V, View > Workspaces. Then right-click on the workspace and pick "Edit workspace '...'". Change the workspace root and confirm the change without synchronizing the workspace. (You will be prompt to sync the workspace; cancel that operation)
2. Rename the directory on the file system

3. Perform synchronization check to verify that everything is all right.

   p4 sync -n //client.name/...

4. P4V will still show the old path in the workspace view. Go to "Search->Filter Workspace->Workspace Root" and it will be updated.

The order of step 1 and 2 doesn't matter.

Answer 2

From the command line:

p4 -c wkspc1 --field Root=C:\p4wkspcs\wkspc1 client -o | client -i
p4 -c wkspc2 --field Root=C:\p4wkspcs\wkspc2 client -o | client -i
ren C:\Perforce_windows_workspaces C:\p4wkspcs

This handles the actual renaming -- if you had a large number of workspaces this is obviously pretty easy to script. If you're using an old client and --field doesn't work, you can do the first two commands as just:

p4 -c wkspc1 client
p4 -c wkspc2 client

and edit the "Root:" field manually.

To double-check you didn't make a typo and that the rename worked right, do:

p4 -c wkspc1 diff -sd
p4 -c wkspc2 diff -sd

These should both return no output (they're checking to see if any files you've previously synced are no longer present in their expected locations).

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From P4V, you will need to switch to each workspace individually and edit the workspace to change the Root field. You can't rename the folder itself from P4V; open an Explorer window and do the rename there. You can use "Reconcile" or "Folder Diff" to verify correctness once everything is done.