VSSToP4

About This Project
Also known as Vss2P4

Content
Source and documentation for Perforce's VssToP4 scripts - Perl scripts to migrate a repository from Microsoft's Visual SourceSafe into Perforce. See



This set of Perl scripts converts VSS archives to Perforce, preserving the original times and authors. Branches are translated verbatim, individual file revisions are grouped as much as possible into Perforce's notion of atomic changes.

Handles VSS 6.x or VSS 2005 format repositories.

Requires Perl 5.8, VSS 5.0 or later and Perforce 2004.2 or later(an earlier version supports 2003.2 or earlier servers). The scripts only run on Windows (read values from Registry).

Basic Files required to download are (see for more info):


 * Strawberry Perl 5.8 (Note: 5.8 required due to P4Perl dependency)
 * (source files for conversion)
 * ftp://ftp.perforce.com/perforce/r08.1/bin.ntx86/p4perl58.exe (required interface to P4 from Perl)

These scripts are not fully supported - but feel free to contact Curator below.

There are a couple of utilities available at: which will help with reporting on branched and deleted files in VSS

Perforce Server Versions before 2004.2
See for a version of the scripts for older servers (2004.2 introduced support for filenames containing '#' or '@'). Please note this version requires a different version of P4Perl - see readme.html for link.

Curator
. Please email robert at vaccaperna.co.uk if you have submitted contributions you'd like published, or if you have ideas for enhancement.

Details
See the file. All files are downloadable from the Public Depot via FTP (see links above).

Alternatives
VIZIM Worldwide has a VSS converter with the following advantages:


 * Much, much faster (reads the VSS data files directly)
 * Can cope with large repositories (40+Gb)
 * More robust (most VSS corruptions are handled seemlessly)
 * Handles VSS 2005 version databases
 * Handles shared and pinned files seemlessly

See VIZIM Migration services for more details.

Updated
See file.