1git-cvsimport(1) 2================ 3 4NAME 5---- 6git-cvsimport - Salvage your data out of another SCM people love to hate 7 8 9SYNOPSIS 10-------- 11[verse] 12'git cvsimport' [-o <branch-for-HEAD>] [-h] [-v] [-d <CVSROOT>] 13 [-A <author-conv-file>] [-p <options-for-cvsps>] [-P <file>] 14 [-C <git_repository>] [-z <fuzz>] [-i] [-k] [-u] [-s <subst>] 15 [-a] [-m] [-M <regex>] [-S <regex>] [-L <commitlimit>] 16 [-r <remote>] [-R] [<CVS_module>] 17 18 19DESCRIPTION 20----------- 21*WARNING:* `git cvsimport` uses cvsps version 2, which is considered 22deprecated; it does not work with cvsps version 3 and later. If you are 23performing a one-shot import of a CVS repository consider using 24http://cvs2svn.tigris.org/cvs2git.html[cvs2git] or 25https://github.com/BartMassey/parsecvs[parsecvs]. 26 27Imports a CVS repository into Git. It will either create a new 28repository, or incrementally import into an existing one. 29 30Splitting the CVS log into patch sets is done by 'cvsps'. 31At least version 2.1 is required. 32 33*WARNING:* for certain situations the import leads to incorrect results. 34Please see the section <<issues,ISSUES>> for further reference. 35 36You should *never* do any work of your own on the branches that are 37created by 'git cvsimport'. By default initial import will create and populate a 38"master" branch from the CVS repository's main branch which you're free 39to work with; after that, you need to 'git merge' incremental imports, or 40any CVS branches, yourself. It is advisable to specify a named remote via 41-r to separate and protect the incoming branches. 42 43If you intend to set up a shared public repository that all developers can 44read/write, or if you want to use linkgit:git-cvsserver[1], then you 45probably want to make a bare clone of the imported repository, 46and use the clone as the shared repository. 47See linkgit:gitcvs-migration[7]. 48 49 50OPTIONS 51------- 52-v:: 53 Verbosity: let 'cvsimport' report what it is doing. 54 55-d <CVSROOT>:: 56 The root of the CVS archive. May be local (a simple path) or remote; 57 currently, only the :local:, :ext: and :pserver: access methods 58 are supported. If not given, 'git cvsimport' will try to read it 59 from `CVS/Root`. If no such file exists, it checks for the 60 `CVSROOT` environment variable. 61 62<CVS_module>:: 63 The CVS module you want to import. Relative to <CVSROOT>. 64 If not given, 'git cvsimport' tries to read it from 65 `CVS/Repository`. 66 67-C <target-dir>:: 68 The Git repository to import to. If the directory doesn't 69 exist, it will be created. Default is the current directory. 70 71-r <remote>:: 72 The Git remote to import this CVS repository into. 73 Moves all CVS branches into remotes/<remote>/<branch> 74 akin to the way 'git clone' uses 'origin' by default. 75 76-o <branch-for-HEAD>:: 77 When no remote is specified (via -r) the 'HEAD' branch 78 from CVS is imported to the 'origin' branch within the Git 79 repository, as 'HEAD' already has a special meaning for Git. 80 When a remote is specified the 'HEAD' branch is named 81 remotes/<remote>/master mirroring 'git clone' behaviour. 82 Use this option if you want to import into a different 83 branch. 84+ 85Use '-o master' for continuing an import that was initially done by 86the old cvs2git tool. 87 88-i:: 89 Import-only: don't perform a checkout after importing. This option 90 ensures the working directory and index remain untouched and will 91 not create them if they do not exist. 92 93-k:: 94 Kill keywords: will extract files with '-kk' from the CVS archive 95 to avoid noisy changesets. Highly recommended, but off by default 96 to preserve compatibility with early imported trees. 97 98-u:: 99 Convert underscores in tag and branch names to dots. 100 101-s <subst>:: 102 Substitute the character "/" in branch names with <subst> 103 104-p <options-for-cvsps>:: 105 Additional options for cvsps. 106 The options '-u' and '-A' are implicit and should not be used here. 107+ 108If you need to pass multiple options, separate them with a comma. 109 110-z <fuzz>:: 111 Pass the timestamp fuzz factor to cvsps, in seconds. If unset, 112 cvsps defaults to 300s. 113 114-P <cvsps-output-file>:: 115 Instead of calling cvsps, read the provided cvsps output file. Useful 116 for debugging or when cvsps is being handled outside cvsimport. 117 118-m:: 119 Attempt to detect merges based on the commit message. This option 120 will enable default regexes that try to capture the source 121 branch name from the commit message. 122 123-M <regex>:: 124 Attempt to detect merges based on the commit message with a custom 125 regex. It can be used with '-m' to enable the default regexes 126 as well. You must escape forward slashes. 127+ 128The regex must capture the source branch name in $1. 129+ 130This option can be used several times to provide several detection regexes. 131 132-S <regex>:: 133 Skip paths matching the regex. 134 135-a:: 136 Import all commits, including recent ones. cvsimport by default 137 skips commits that have a timestamp less than 10 minutes ago. 138 139-L <limit>:: 140 Limit the number of commits imported. Workaround for cases where 141 cvsimport leaks memory. 142 143-A <author-conv-file>:: 144 CVS by default uses the Unix username when writing its 145 commit logs. Using this option and an author-conv-file 146 maps the name recorded in CVS to author name, e-mail and 147 optional time zone: 148+ 149--------- 150 exon=Andreas Ericsson <ae@op5.se> 151 spawn=Simon Pawn <spawn@frog-pond.org> America/Chicago 152 153--------- 154+ 155'git cvsimport' will make it appear as those authors had 156their GIT_AUTHOR_NAME and GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL set properly 157all along. If a time zone is specified, GIT_AUTHOR_DATE will 158have the corresponding offset applied. 159+ 160For convenience, this data is saved to `$GIT_DIR/cvs-authors` 161each time the '-A' option is provided and read from that same 162file each time 'git cvsimport' is run. 163+ 164It is not recommended to use this feature if you intend to 165export changes back to CVS again later with 166'git cvsexportcommit'. 167 168-R:: 169 Generate a `$GIT_DIR/cvs-revisions` file containing a mapping from CVS 170 revision numbers to newly-created Git commit IDs. The generated file 171 will contain one line for each (filename, revision) pair imported; 172 each line will look like 173+ 174--------- 175src/widget.c 1.1 1d862f173cdc7325b6fa6d2ae1cfd61fd1b512b7 176--------- 177+ 178The revision data is appended to the file if it already exists, for use when 179doing incremental imports. 180+ 181This option may be useful if you have CVS revision numbers stored in commit 182messages, bug-tracking systems, email archives, and the like. 183 184-h:: 185 Print a short usage message and exit. 186 187OUTPUT 188------ 189If '-v' is specified, the script reports what it is doing. 190 191Otherwise, success is indicated the Unix way, i.e. by simply exiting with 192a zero exit status. 193 194[[issues]] 195ISSUES 196------ 197Problems related to timestamps: 198 199 * If timestamps of commits in the CVS repository are not stable enough 200 to be used for ordering commits changes may show up in the wrong 201 order. 202 * If any files were ever "cvs import"ed more than once (e.g., import of 203 more than one vendor release) the HEAD contains the wrong content. 204 * If the timestamp order of different files cross the revision order 205 within the commit matching time window the order of commits may be 206 wrong. 207 208Problems related to branches: 209 210 * Branches on which no commits have been made are not imported. 211 * All files from the branching point are added to a branch even if 212 never added in CVS. 213 * This applies to files added to the source branch *after* a daughter 214 branch was created: if previously no commit was made on the daughter 215 branch they will erroneously be added to the daughter branch in git. 216 217Problems related to tags: 218 219* Multiple tags on the same revision are not imported. 220 221If you suspect that any of these issues may apply to the repository you 222want to import, consider using cvs2git: 223 224* cvs2git (part of cvs2svn), `http://subversion.apache.org/` 225 226GIT 227--- 228Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite