Documentation / git-svn.txton commit revision traversal: show full history with merge simplification (6546b59)
   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-----------
  14'git-svn' is a simple conduit for changesets between Subversion and git.
  15It provides a bidirectional flow of changes between a Subversion and a git
  16respository.
  17
  18'git-svn' can track a single Subversion branch simply by using a
  19URL to the branch, follow branches laid out in the Subversion recommended
  20method (trunk, branches, tags directories) with the --stdlayout option, or
  21follow branches in any layout with the -T/-t/-b options (see options to
  22'init' below, and also the 'clone' command).
  23
  24Once tracking a Subversion branch (with any of the above methods), the git
  25repository can be updated from Subversion by the 'fetch' command and
  26Subversion updated from git by the 'dcommit' command.
  27
  28COMMANDS
  29--------
  30--
  31
  32'init'::
  33        Initializes an empty git repository with additional
  34        metadata directories for 'git-svn'.  The Subversion URL
  35        may be specified as a command-line argument, or as full
  36        URL arguments to -T/-t/-b.  Optionally, the target
  37        directory to operate on can be specified as a second
  38        argument.  Normally this command initializes the current
  39        directory.
  40
  41-T<trunk_subdir>;;
  42--trunk=<trunk_subdir>;;
  43-t<tags_subdir>;;
  44--tags=<tags_subdir>;;
  45-b<branches_subdir>;;
  46--branches=<branches_subdir>;;
  47-s;;
  48--stdlayout;;
  49        These are optional command-line options for init.  Each of
  50        these flags can point to a relative repository path
  51        (--tags=project/tags') or a full url
  52        (--tags=https://foo.org/project/tags). The option --stdlayout is
  53        a shorthand way of setting trunk,tags,branches as the relative paths,
  54        which is the Subversion default. If any of the other options are given
  55        as well, they take precedence.
  56--no-metadata;;
  57        Set the 'noMetadata' option in the [svn-remote] config.
  58--use-svm-props;;
  59        Set the 'useSvmProps' option in the [svn-remote] config.
  60--use-svnsync-props;;
  61        Set the 'useSvnsyncProps' option in the [svn-remote] config.
  62--rewrite-root=<URL>;;
  63        Set the 'rewriteRoot' option in the [svn-remote] config.
  64--use-log-author;;
  65        When retrieving svn commits into git (as part of fetch, rebase, or
  66        dcommit operations), look for the first From: or Signed-off-by: line
  67        in the log message and use that as the author string.
  68--add-author-from;;
  69        When committing to svn from git (as part of commit or dcommit
  70        operations), if the existing log message doesn't already have a
  71        From: or Signed-off-by: line, append a From: line based on the
  72        git commit's author string.  If you use this, then --use-log-author
  73        will retrieve a valid author string for all commits.
  74--username=<USER>;;
  75        For transports that SVN handles authentication for (http,
  76        https, and plain svn), specify the username.  For other
  77        transports (eg svn+ssh://), you must include the username in
  78        the URL, eg svn+ssh://foo@svn.bar.com/project
  79--prefix=<prefix>;;
  80        This allows one to specify a prefix which is prepended
  81        to the names of remotes if trunk/branches/tags are
  82        specified.  The prefix does not automatically include a
  83        trailing slash, so be sure you include one in the
  84        argument if that is what you want.  If --branches/-b is
  85        specified, the prefix must include a trailing slash.
  86        Setting a prefix is useful if you wish to track multiple
  87        projects that share a common repository.
  88
  89'fetch'::
  90        Fetch unfetched revisions from the Subversion remote we are
  91        tracking.  The name of the [svn-remote "..."] section in the
  92        .git/config file may be specified as an optional command-line
  93        argument.
  94
  95'clone'::
  96        Runs 'init' and 'fetch'.  It will automatically create a
  97        directory based on the basename of the URL passed to it;
  98        or if a second argument is passed; it will create a directory
  99        and work within that.  It accepts all arguments that the
 100        'init' and 'fetch' commands accept; with the exception of
 101        '--fetch-all'.   After a repository is cloned, the 'fetch'
 102        command will be able to update revisions without affecting
 103        the working tree; and the 'rebase' command will be able
 104        to update the working tree with the latest changes.
 105
 106'rebase'::
 107        This fetches revisions from the SVN parent of the current HEAD
 108        and rebases the current (uncommitted to SVN) work against it.
 109
 110This works similarly to `svn update` or 'git-pull' except that
 111it preserves linear history with 'git-rebase' instead of
 112'git-merge' for ease of dcommiting with 'git-svn'.
 113
 114This accepts all options that 'git-svn fetch' and 'git-rebase'
 115accept.  However, '--fetch-all' only fetches from the current
 116[svn-remote], and not all [svn-remote] definitions.
 117
 118Like 'git-rebase'; this requires that the working tree be clean
 119and have no uncommitted changes.
 120
 121-l;;
 122--local;;
 123        Do not fetch remotely; only run 'git-rebase' against the
 124        last fetched commit from the upstream SVN.
 125
 126'dcommit'::
 127        Commit each diff from a specified head directly to the SVN
 128        repository, and then rebase or reset (depending on whether or
 129        not there is a diff between SVN and head).  This will create
 130        a revision in SVN for each commit in git.
 131        It is recommended that you run 'git-svn' fetch and rebase (not
 132        pull or merge) your commits against the latest changes in the
 133        SVN repository.
 134        An optional command-line argument may be specified as an
 135        alternative to HEAD.
 136        This is advantageous over 'set-tree' (below) because it produces
 137        cleaner, more linear history.
 138+
 139--no-rebase;;
 140        After committing, do not rebase or reset.
 141--
 142
 143'log'::
 144        This should make it easy to look up svn log messages when svn
 145        users refer to -r/--revision numbers.
 146+
 147The following features from `svn log' are supported:
 148+
 149--
 150--revision=<n>[:<n>];;
 151        is supported, non-numeric args are not:
 152        HEAD, NEXT, BASE, PREV, etc ...
 153-v/--verbose;;
 154        it's not completely compatible with the --verbose
 155        output in svn log, but reasonably close.
 156--limit=<n>;;
 157        is NOT the same as --max-count, doesn't count
 158        merged/excluded commits
 159--incremental;;
 160        supported
 161--
 162+
 163New features:
 164+
 165--
 166--show-commit;;
 167        shows the git commit sha1, as well
 168--oneline;;
 169        our version of --pretty=oneline
 170--
 171+
 172NOTE: SVN itself only stores times in UTC and nothing else. The regular svn
 173client converts the UTC time to the local time (or based on the TZ=
 174environment). This command has the same behaviour.
 175+
 176Any other arguments are passed directly to 'git-log'
 177
 178'blame'::
 179       Show what revision and author last modified each line of a file. The
 180       output of this mode is format-compatible with the output of
 181       `svn blame' by default. Like the SVN blame command,
 182       local uncommitted changes in the working copy are ignored;
 183       the version of the file in the HEAD revision is annotated. Unknown
 184       arguments are passed directly to 'git-blame'.
 185+
 186--git-format;;
 187        Produce output in the same format as 'git-blame', but with
 188        SVN revision numbers instead of git commit hashes. In this mode,
 189        changes that haven't been committed to SVN (including local
 190        working-copy edits) are shown as revision 0.
 191
 192--
 193'find-rev'::
 194        When given an SVN revision number of the form 'rN', returns the
 195        corresponding git commit hash (this can optionally be followed by a
 196        tree-ish to specify which branch should be searched).  When given a
 197        tree-ish, returns the corresponding SVN revision number.
 198
 199'set-tree'::
 200        You should consider using 'dcommit' instead of this command.
 201        Commit specified commit or tree objects to SVN.  This relies on
 202        your imported fetch data being up-to-date.  This makes
 203        absolutely no attempts to do patching when committing to SVN, it
 204        simply overwrites files with those specified in the tree or
 205        commit.  All merging is assumed to have taken place
 206        independently of 'git-svn' functions.
 207
 208'create-ignore'::
 209        Recursively finds the svn:ignore property on directories and
 210        creates matching .gitignore files. The resulting files are staged to
 211        be committed, but are not committed. Use -r/--revision to refer to a
 212        specfic revision.
 213
 214'show-ignore'::
 215        Recursively finds and lists the svn:ignore property on
 216        directories.  The output is suitable for appending to
 217        the $GIT_DIR/info/exclude file.
 218
 219'commit-diff'::
 220        Commits the diff of two tree-ish arguments from the
 221        command-line.  This command does not rely on being inside an `git-svn
 222        init`-ed repository.  This command takes three arguments, (a) the
 223        original tree to diff against, (b) the new tree result, (c) the
 224        URL of the target Subversion repository.  The final argument
 225        (URL) may be omitted if you are working from a 'git-svn'-aware
 226        repository (that has been `init`-ed with 'git-svn').
 227        The -r<revision> option is required for this.
 228
 229'info'::
 230        Shows information about a file or directory similar to what
 231        `svn info' provides.  Does not currently support a -r/--revision
 232        argument.  Use the --url option to output only the value of the
 233        'URL:' field.
 234
 235'proplist'::
 236        Lists the properties stored in the Subversion repository about a
 237        given file or directory.  Use -r/--revision to refer to a specific
 238        Subversion revision.
 239
 240'propget'::
 241        Gets the Subversion property given as the first argument, for a
 242        file.  A specific revision can be specified with -r/--revision.
 243
 244'show-externals'::
 245        Shows the Subversion externals.  Use -r/--revision to specify a
 246        specific revision.
 247
 248--
 249
 250OPTIONS
 251-------
 252--
 253
 254--shared[={false|true|umask|group|all|world|everybody}]::
 255--template=<template_directory>::
 256        Only used with the 'init' command.
 257        These are passed directly to 'git-init'.
 258
 259-r <ARG>::
 260--revision <ARG>::
 261
 262Used with the 'fetch' command.
 263
 264This allows revision ranges for partial/cauterized history
 265to be supported.  $NUMBER, $NUMBER1:$NUMBER2 (numeric ranges),
 266$NUMBER:HEAD, and BASE:$NUMBER are all supported.
 267
 268This can allow you to make partial mirrors when running fetch;
 269but is generally not recommended because history will be skipped
 270and lost.
 271
 272-::
 273--stdin::
 274
 275Only used with the 'set-tree' command.
 276
 277Read a list of commits from stdin and commit them in reverse
 278order.  Only the leading sha1 is read from each line, so
 279'git-rev-list --pretty=oneline' output can be used.
 280
 281--rmdir::
 282
 283Only used with the 'dcommit', 'set-tree' and 'commit-diff' commands.
 284
 285Remove directories from the SVN tree if there are no files left
 286behind.  SVN can version empty directories, and they are not
 287removed by default if there are no files left in them.  git
 288cannot version empty directories.  Enabling this flag will make
 289the commit to SVN act like git.
 290
 291config key: svn.rmdir
 292
 293-e::
 294--edit::
 295
 296Only used with the 'dcommit', 'set-tree' and 'commit-diff' commands.
 297
 298Edit the commit message before committing to SVN.  This is off by
 299default for objects that are commits, and forced on when committing
 300tree objects.
 301
 302config key: svn.edit
 303
 304-l<num>::
 305--find-copies-harder::
 306
 307Only used with the 'dcommit', 'set-tree' and 'commit-diff' commands.
 308
 309They are both passed directly to 'git-diff-tree'; see
 310linkgit:git-diff-tree[1] for more information.
 311
 312[verse]
 313config key: svn.l
 314config key: svn.findcopiesharder
 315
 316-A<filename>::
 317--authors-file=<filename>::
 318
 319Syntax is compatible with the file used by 'git-cvsimport':
 320
 321------------------------------------------------------------------------
 322        loginname = Joe User <user@example.com>
 323------------------------------------------------------------------------
 324
 325If this option is specified and 'git-svn' encounters an SVN
 326committer name that does not exist in the authors-file, 'git-svn'
 327will abort operation. The user will then have to add the
 328appropriate entry.  Re-running the previous 'git-svn' command
 329after the authors-file is modified should continue operation.
 330
 331config key: svn.authorsfile
 332
 333-q::
 334--quiet::
 335        Make 'git-svn' less verbose.
 336
 337--repack[=<n>]::
 338--repack-flags=<flags>::
 339
 340These should help keep disk usage sane for large fetches
 341with many revisions.
 342
 343--repack takes an optional argument for the number of revisions
 344to fetch before repacking.  This defaults to repacking every
 3451000 commits fetched if no argument is specified.
 346
 347--repack-flags are passed directly to 'git-repack'.
 348
 349[verse]
 350config key: svn.repack
 351config key: svn.repackflags
 352
 353-m::
 354--merge::
 355-s<strategy>::
 356--strategy=<strategy>::
 357
 358These are only used with the 'dcommit' and 'rebase' commands.
 359
 360Passed directly to 'git-rebase' when using 'dcommit' if a
 361'git-reset' cannot be used (see 'dcommit').
 362
 363-n::
 364--dry-run::
 365
 366This can be used with the 'dcommit' and 'rebase' commands.
 367
 368For 'dcommit', print out the series of git arguments that would show
 369which diffs would be committed to SVN.
 370
 371For 'rebase', display the local branch associated with the upstream svn
 372repository associated with the current branch and the URL of svn
 373repository that will be fetched from.
 374
 375--
 376
 377ADVANCED OPTIONS
 378----------------
 379--
 380
 381-i<GIT_SVN_ID>::
 382--id <GIT_SVN_ID>::
 383
 384This sets GIT_SVN_ID (instead of using the environment).  This
 385allows the user to override the default refname to fetch from
 386when tracking a single URL.  The 'log' and 'dcommit' commands
 387no longer require this switch as an argument.
 388
 389-R<remote name>::
 390--svn-remote <remote name>::
 391        Specify the [svn-remote "<remote name>"] section to use,
 392        this allows SVN multiple repositories to be tracked.
 393        Default: "svn"
 394
 395--follow-parent::
 396        This is especially helpful when we're tracking a directory
 397        that has been moved around within the repository, or if we
 398        started tracking a branch and never tracked the trunk it was
 399        descended from. This feature is enabled by default, use
 400        --no-follow-parent to disable it.
 401
 402config key: svn.followparent
 403
 404--
 405CONFIG FILE-ONLY OPTIONS
 406------------------------
 407--
 408
 409svn.noMetadata::
 410svn-remote.<name>.noMetadata::
 411
 412This gets rid of the 'git-svn-id:' lines at the end of every commit.
 413
 414If you lose your .git/svn/git-svn/.rev_db file, 'git-svn' will not
 415be able to rebuild it and you won't be able to fetch again,
 416either.  This is fine for one-shot imports.
 417
 418The 'git-svn log' command will not work on repositories using
 419this, either.  Using this conflicts with the 'useSvmProps'
 420option for (hopefully) obvious reasons.
 421
 422svn.useSvmProps::
 423svn-remote.<name>.useSvmProps::
 424
 425This allows 'git-svn' to re-map repository URLs and UUIDs from
 426mirrors created using SVN::Mirror (or svk) for metadata.
 427
 428If an SVN revision has a property, "svm:headrev", it is likely
 429that the revision was created by SVN::Mirror (also used by SVK).
 430The property contains a repository UUID and a revision.  We want
 431to make it look like we are mirroring the original URL, so
 432introduce a helper function that returns the original identity
 433URL and UUID, and use it when generating metadata in commit
 434messages.
 435
 436svn.useSvnsyncProps::
 437svn-remote.<name>.useSvnsyncprops::
 438        Similar to the useSvmProps option; this is for users
 439        of the svnsync(1) command distributed with SVN 1.4.x and
 440        later.
 441
 442svn-remote.<name>.rewriteRoot::
 443        This allows users to create repositories from alternate
 444        URLs.  For example, an administrator could run 'git-svn' on the
 445        server locally (accessing via file://) but wish to distribute
 446        the repository with a public http:// or svn:// URL in the
 447        metadata so users of it will see the public URL.
 448
 449--
 450
 451Since the noMetadata, rewriteRoot, useSvnsyncProps and useSvmProps
 452options all affect the metadata generated and used by 'git-svn'; they
 453*must* be set in the configuration file before any history is imported
 454and these settings should never be changed once they are set.
 455
 456Additionally, only one of these four options can be used per-svn-remote
 457section because they affect the 'git-svn-id:' metadata line.
 458
 459
 460BASIC EXAMPLES
 461--------------
 462
 463Tracking and contributing to the trunk of a Subversion-managed project:
 464
 465------------------------------------------------------------------------
 466# Clone a repo (like git clone):
 467        git svn clone http://svn.foo.org/project/trunk
 468# Enter the newly cloned directory:
 469        cd trunk
 470# You should be on master branch, double-check with git-branch
 471        git branch
 472# Do some work and commit locally to git:
 473        git commit ...
 474# Something is committed to SVN, rebase your local changes against the
 475# latest changes in SVN:
 476        git svn rebase
 477# Now commit your changes (that were committed previously using git) to SVN,
 478# as well as automatically updating your working HEAD:
 479        git svn dcommit
 480# Append svn:ignore settings to the default git exclude file:
 481        git svn show-ignore >> .git/info/exclude
 482------------------------------------------------------------------------
 483
 484Tracking and contributing to an entire Subversion-managed project
 485(complete with a trunk, tags and branches):
 486
 487------------------------------------------------------------------------
 488# Clone a repo (like git clone):
 489        git svn clone http://svn.foo.org/project -T trunk -b branches -t tags
 490# View all branches and tags you have cloned:
 491        git branch -r
 492# Reset your master to trunk (or any other branch, replacing 'trunk'
 493# with the appropriate name):
 494        git reset --hard remotes/trunk
 495# You may only dcommit to one branch/tag/trunk at a time.  The usage
 496# of dcommit/rebase/show-ignore should be the same as above.
 497------------------------------------------------------------------------
 498
 499The initial 'git-svn clone' can be quite time-consuming
 500(especially for large Subversion repositories). If multiple
 501people (or one person with multiple machines) want to use
 502'git-svn' to interact with the same Subversion repository, you can
 503do the initial 'git-svn clone' to a repository on a server and
 504have each person clone that repository with 'git-clone':
 505
 506------------------------------------------------------------------------
 507# Do the initial import on a server
 508        ssh server "cd /pub && git svn clone http://svn.foo.org/project
 509# Clone locally - make sure the refs/remotes/ space matches the server
 510        mkdir project
 511        cd project
 512        git init
 513        git remote add origin server:/pub/project
 514        git config --add remote.origin.fetch '+refs/remotes/*:refs/remotes/*'
 515        git fetch
 516# Initialize git-svn locally (be sure to use the same URL and -T/-b/-t options as were used on server)
 517        git svn init http://svn.foo.org/project
 518# Pull the latest changes from Subversion
 519        git svn rebase
 520------------------------------------------------------------------------
 521
 522REBASE VS. PULL/MERGE
 523---------------------
 524
 525Originally, 'git-svn' recommended that the 'remotes/git-svn' branch be
 526pulled or merged from.  This is because the author favored
 527`git svn set-tree B` to commit a single head rather than the
 528`git svn set-tree A..B` notation to commit multiple commits.
 529
 530If you use `git svn set-tree A..B` to commit several diffs and you do
 531not have the latest remotes/git-svn merged into my-branch, you should
 532use `git svn rebase` to update your work branch instead of `git pull` or
 533`git merge`.  `pull`/`merge' can cause non-linear history to be flattened
 534when committing into SVN, which can lead to merge commits reversing
 535previous commits in SVN.
 536
 537DESIGN PHILOSOPHY
 538-----------------
 539Merge tracking in Subversion is lacking and doing branched development
 540with Subversion can be cumbersome as a result.  While 'git-svn' can track
 541copy history (including branches and tags) for repositories adopting a
 542standard layout, it cannot yet represent merge history that happened
 543inside git back upstream to SVN users.  Therefore it is advised that
 544users keep history as linear as possible inside git to ease
 545compatibility with SVN (see the CAVEATS section below).
 546
 547CAVEATS
 548-------
 549
 550For the sake of simplicity and interoperating with a less-capable system
 551(SVN), it is recommended that all 'git-svn' users clone, fetch and dcommit
 552directly from the SVN server, and avoid all 'git-clone'/'pull'/'merge'/'push'
 553operations between git repositories and branches.  The recommended
 554method of exchanging code between git branches and users is
 555'git-format-patch' and 'git-am', or just 'dcommit'ing to the SVN repository.
 556
 557Running 'git-merge' or 'git-pull' is NOT recommended on a branch you
 558plan to 'dcommit' from.  Subversion does not represent merges in any
 559reasonable or useful fashion; so users using Subversion cannot see any
 560merges you've made.  Furthermore, if you merge or pull from a git branch
 561that is a mirror of an SVN branch, 'dcommit' may commit to the wrong
 562branch.
 563
 564'git-clone' does not clone branches under the refs/remotes/ hierarchy or
 565any 'git-svn' metadata, or config.  So repositories created and managed with
 566using 'git-svn' should use 'rsync' for cloning, if cloning is to be done
 567at all.
 568
 569Since 'dcommit' uses rebase internally, any git branches you 'git-push' to
 570before 'dcommit' on will require forcing an overwrite of the existing ref
 571on the remote repository.  This is generally considered bad practice,
 572see the linkgit:git-push[1] documentation for details.
 573
 574Do not use the --amend option of linkgit:git-commit[1] on a change you've
 575already dcommitted.  It is considered bad practice to --amend commits
 576you've already pushed to a remote repository for other users, and
 577dcommit with SVN is analogous to that.
 578
 579BUGS
 580----
 581
 582We ignore all SVN properties except svn:executable.  Any unhandled
 583properties are logged to $GIT_DIR/svn/<refname>/unhandled.log
 584
 585Renamed and copied directories are not detected by git and hence not
 586tracked when committing to SVN.  I do not plan on adding support for
 587this as it's quite difficult and time-consuming to get working for all
 588the possible corner cases (git doesn't do it, either).  Committing
 589renamed and copied files are fully supported if they're similar enough
 590for git to detect them.
 591
 592CONFIGURATION
 593-------------
 594
 595'git-svn' stores [svn-remote] configuration information in the
 596repository .git/config file.  It is similar the core git
 597[remote] sections except 'fetch' keys do not accept glob
 598arguments; but they are instead handled by the 'branches'
 599and 'tags' keys.  Since some SVN repositories are oddly
 600configured with multiple projects glob expansions such those
 601listed below are allowed:
 602
 603------------------------------------------------------------------------
 604[svn-remote "project-a"]
 605        url = http://server.org/svn
 606        branches = branches/*/project-a:refs/remotes/project-a/branches/*
 607        tags = tags/*/project-a:refs/remotes/project-a/tags/*
 608        trunk = trunk/project-a:refs/remotes/project-a/trunk
 609------------------------------------------------------------------------
 610
 611Keep in mind that the '*' (asterisk) wildcard of the local ref
 612(right of the ':') *must* be the farthest right path component;
 613however the remote wildcard may be anywhere as long as it's own
 614independent path component (surrounded by '/' or EOL).   This
 615type of configuration is not automatically created by 'init' and
 616should be manually entered with a text-editor or using 'git-config'.
 617
 618SEE ALSO
 619--------
 620linkgit:git-rebase[1]
 621
 622Author
 623------
 624Written by Eric Wong <normalperson@yhbt.net>.
 625
 626Documentation
 627-------------
 628Written by Eric Wong <normalperson@yhbt.net>.