Subject: Re: git-p4: exception when cloning a perforce repository

From: Pete Wyckoff <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2014 19:18:20 -0500

[email-masked] wrote on Mon, 13 Jan 2014 14:37 +0100:
> I am trying to clone a perforce repository via git and I am having the following backtrace :
> 
> {14:20}~/projects/####:master ✗ ➭ git p4 clone //depot/@all .
> Importing revision …
> [...]
> Importing revision 59702 (45%)Traceback (most recent call last):
[..]
>   File "/opt/git/libexec/git-core/git-p4", line 2078, in streamOneP4File
>     if data[-1] == '\n':
> IndexError: string index out of range
> 
> git —version: git version 1.8.5.2.309.ga25014b [last commit from master from github.com/git/git]
> os : ubuntu 13.10

This code:

        if type_base == "symlink":
            git_mode = "120000"
            # p4 print on a symlink sometimes contains "target\n";
            # if it does, remove the newline
            data = ''.join(contents)
  ==>       if data[-1] == '\n':
                contents = [data[:-1]]
            else:
                contents = [data]

means that data is an empty string.  Implies you've got a
symlink pointing to nothing.  Is that even possible?

It could be this is a regression introduced at 1292df1 (git-p4:
Fix occasional truncation of symlink contents., 2013-08-08).  The
old way of doing data[:-1] unconditionally would have worked but
was broken for other reasons.

Could you investigate the symlink a bit?  We're looking for
one in change 59702 that points to nowhere.  Maybe do:

    $ p4 describe -s 59702

and see if you can figure out which of those could be a symlink, then
inspect it:

    $ p4 fstat //depot/symlink@59702
    (probably shows it is "headRev 1")

    $ p4 print -q //depot/symlink#1

    $ p4 print -q //depot/symlink#1 | od -c

Thanks for checking this depot info first.

		-- Pete