contrib / git-svn / git-svn.txton commit Merge branch 'jc/diff' (0825f96)
   1git-svn(1)
   2==========
   3
   4NAME
   5----
   6git-svn - bidirectional operation between a single Subversion branch and git
   7
   8SYNOPSIS
   9--------
  10'git-svn' <command> [options] [arguments]
  11
  12DESCRIPTION
  13-----------
  14git-svn is a simple conduit for changesets between a single Subversion
  15branch and git.
  16
  17git-svn is not to be confused with git-svnimport.  The were designed
  18with very different goals in mind.
  19
  20git-svn is designed for an individual developer who wants a
  21bidirectional flow of changesets between a single branch in Subversion
  22and an arbitrary number of branches in git.  git-svnimport is designed
  23for read-only operation on repositories that match a particular layout
  24(albeit the recommended one by SVN developers).
  25
  26For importing svn, git-svnimport is potentially more powerful when
  27operating on repositories organized under the recommended
  28trunk/branch/tags structure, and should be faster, too.
  29
  30git-svn completely ignores the very limited view of branching that
  31Subversion has.  This allows git-svn to be much easier to use,
  32especially on repositories that are not organized in a manner that
  33git-svnimport is designed for.
  34
  35COMMANDS
  36--------
  37init::
  38        Creates an empty git repository with additional metadata
  39        directories for git-svn.  The SVN_URL must be specified
  40        at this point.
  41
  42fetch::
  43        Fetch unfetched revisions from the SVN_URL we are tracking.
  44        refs/heads/remotes/git-svn will be updated to the latest revision.
  45
  46        Note: You should never attempt to modify the remotes/git-svn branch
  47        outside of git-svn.  Instead, create a branch from remotes/git-svn
  48        and work on that branch.  Use the 'commit' command (see below)
  49        to write git commits back to remotes/git-svn.
  50
  51commit::
  52        Commit specified commit or tree objects to SVN.  This relies on
  53        your imported fetch data being up-to-date.  This makes
  54        absolutely no attempts to do patching when committing to SVN, it
  55        simply overwrites files with those specified in the tree or
  56        commit.  All merging is assumed to have taken place
  57        independently of git-svn functions.
  58
  59rebuild::
  60        Not a part of daily usage, but this is a useful command if
  61        you've just cloned a repository (using git-clone) that was
  62        tracked with git-svn.  Unfortunately, git-clone does not clone
  63        git-svn metadata and the svn working tree that git-svn uses for
  64        its operations.  This rebuilds the metadata so git-svn can
  65        resume fetch operations.  SVN_URL may be optionally specified if
  66        the directory/repository you're tracking has moved or changed
  67        protocols.
  68
  69show-ignore::
  70        Recursively finds and lists the svn:ignore property on
  71        directories.  The output is suitable for appending to
  72        the $GIT_DIR/info/exclude file.
  73
  74OPTIONS
  75-------
  76-r <ARG>::
  77--revision <ARG>::
  78        Only used with the 'fetch' command.
  79
  80        Takes any valid -r<argument> svn would accept and passes it
  81        directly to svn. -r<ARG1>:<ARG2> ranges and "{" DATE "}" syntax
  82        is also supported.  This is passed directly to svn, see svn
  83        documentation for more details.
  84
  85        This can allow you to make partial mirrors when running fetch.
  86
  87-::
  88--stdin::
  89        Only used with the 'commit' command.
  90
  91        Read a list of commits from stdin and commit them in reverse
  92        order.  Only the leading sha1 is read from each line, so
  93        git-rev-list --pretty=oneline output can be used.
  94
  95--rmdir::
  96        Only used with the 'commit' command.
  97
  98        Remove directories from the SVN tree if there are no files left
  99        behind.  SVN can version empty directories, and they are not
 100        removed by default if there are no files left in them.  git
 101        cannot version empty directories.  Enabling this flag will make
 102        the commit to SVN act like git.
 103
 104-e::
 105--edit::
 106        Only used with the 'commit' command.
 107
 108        Edit the commit message before committing to SVN.  This is off by
 109        default for objects that are commits, and forced on when committing
 110        tree objects.
 111
 112-l<num>::
 113--find-copies-harder::
 114        Both of these are only used with the 'commit' command.
 115
 116        They are both passed directly to git-diff-tree see
 117        git-diff-tree(1) for more information.
 118
 119COMPATIBILITY OPTIONS
 120---------------------
 121--no-ignore-externals::
 122        Only used with the 'fetch' and 'rebuild' command.
 123
 124        By default, git-svn passes --ignore-externals to svn to avoid
 125        fetching svn:external trees into git.  Pass this flag to enable
 126        externals tracking directly via git.
 127
 128        Versions of svn that do not support --ignore-externals are
 129        automatically detected and this flag will be automatically
 130        enabled for them.
 131
 132        Otherwise, do not enable this flag unless you know what you're
 133        doing.
 134
 135--no-stop-on-copy::
 136        Only used with the 'fetch' command.
 137
 138        By default, git-svn passes --stop-on-copy to avoid dealing with
 139        the copied/renamed branch directory problem entirely.  A
 140        copied/renamed branch is the result of a <SVN_URL> being created
 141        in the past from a different source.  These are problematic to
 142        deal with even when working purely with svn if you work inside
 143        subdirectories.
 144
 145        Do not use this flag unless you know exactly what you're getting
 146        yourself into.  You have been warned.
 147
 148Examples
 149~~~~~~~~
 150
 151Tracking and contributing to an Subversion managed-project:
 152
 153# Initialize a tree (like git init-db)::
 154        git-svn init http://svn.foo.org/project/trunk
 155# Fetch remote revisions::
 156        git-svn fetch
 157# Create your own branch to hack on::
 158        git checkout -b my-branch remotes/git-svn
 159# Commit only the git commits you want to SVN::
 160        git-svn commit <tree-ish> [<tree-ish_2> ...]
 161# Commit all the git commits from my-branch that don't exist in SVN::
 162        git-svn commit remotes/git-svn..my-branch
 163# Something is committed to SVN, pull the latest into your branch::
 164        git-svn fetch && git pull . remotes/git-svn
 165# Append svn:ignore settings to the default git exclude file:
 166        git-svn show-ignore >> .git/info/exclude
 167
 168DESIGN PHILOSOPHY
 169-----------------
 170Merge tracking in Subversion is lacking and doing branched development
 171with Subversion is cumbersome as a result.  git-svn completely forgoes
 172any automated merge/branch tracking on the Subversion side and leaves it
 173entirely up to the user on the git side.  It's simply not worth it to do
 174a useful translation when the the original signal is weak.
 175
 176TRACKING MULTIPLE REPOSITORIES OR BRANCHES
 177------------------------------------------
 178This is for advanced users, most users should ignore this section.
 179
 180Because git-svn does not care about relationships between different
 181branches or directories in a Subversion repository, git-svn has a simple
 182hack to allow it to track an arbitrary number of related _or_ unrelated
 183SVN repositories via one git repository.  Simply set the GIT_SVN_ID
 184environment variable to a name other other than "git-svn" (the default)
 185and git-svn will ignore the contents of the $GIT_DIR/git-svn directory
 186and instead do all of its work in $GIT_DIR/$GIT_SVN_ID for that
 187invocation.  The interface branch will be remotes/$GIT_SVN_ID, instead of
 188remotes/git-svn.  Any remotes/$GIT_SVN_ID branch should never be modified
 189by the user outside of git-svn commands.
 190
 191ADDITIONAL FETCH ARGUMENTS
 192--------------------------
 193This is for advanced users, most users should ignore this section.
 194
 195Unfetched SVN revisions may be imported as children of existing commits
 196by specifying additional arguments to 'fetch'.  Additional parents may
 197optionally be specified in the form of sha1 hex sums at the
 198command-line.  Unfetched SVN revisions may also be tied to particular
 199git commits with the following syntax:
 200
 201        svn_revision_number=git_commit_sha1
 202
 203This allows you to tie unfetched SVN revision 375 to your current HEAD::
 204
 205        git-svn fetch 375=$(git-rev-parse HEAD)
 206
 207BUGS
 208----
 209If somebody commits a conflicting changeset to SVN at a bad moment
 210(right before you commit) causing a conflict and your commit to fail,
 211your svn working tree ($GIT_DIR/git-svn/tree) may be dirtied.  The
 212easiest thing to do is probably just to rm -rf $GIT_DIR/git-svn/tree and
 213run 'rebuild'.
 214
 215We ignore all SVN properties except svn:executable.  Too difficult to
 216map them since we rely heavily on git write-tree being _exactly_ the
 217same on both the SVN and git working trees and I prefer not to clutter
 218working trees with metadata files.
 219
 220svn:keywords can't be ignored in Subversion (at least I don't know of
 221a way to ignore them).
 222
 223Renamed and copied directories are not detected by git and hence not
 224tracked when committing to SVN.  I do not plan on adding support for
 225this as it's quite difficult and time-consuming to get working for all
 226the possible corner cases (git doesn't do it, either).  Renamed and
 227copied files are fully supported if they're similar enough for git to
 228detect them.
 229
 230Author
 231------
 232Written by Eric Wong <normalperson@yhbt.net>.
 233
 234Documentation
 235-------------
 236Written by Eric Wong <normalperson@yhbt.net>.