Documentation / git-cvsimport.txton commit git-p4: Unset P4DIFF environment variable when using 'p4 -du diff' (67abd41)
   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>] [<CVS_module>]
  17
  18
  19DESCRIPTION
  20-----------
  21Imports a CVS repository into git. It will either create a new
  22repository, or incrementally import into an existing one.
  23
  24Splitting the CVS log into patch sets is done by 'cvsps'.
  25At least version 2.1 is required.
  26
  27You should *never* do any work of your own on the branches that are
  28created by git-cvsimport.  By default initial import will create and populate a
  29"master" branch from the CVS repository's main branch which you're free
  30to work with; after that, you need to 'git merge' incremental imports, or
  31any CVS branches, yourself.  It is advisable to specify a named remote via
  32-r to separate and protect the incoming branches.
  33
  34
  35OPTIONS
  36-------
  37-v::
  38        Verbosity: let 'cvsimport' report what it is doing.
  39
  40-d <CVSROOT>::
  41        The root of the CVS archive. May be local (a simple path) or remote;
  42        currently, only the :local:, :ext: and :pserver: access methods
  43        are supported. If not given, git-cvsimport will try to read it
  44        from `CVS/Root`. If no such file exists, it checks for the
  45        `CVSROOT` environment variable.
  46
  47<CVS_module>::
  48        The CVS module you want to import. Relative to <CVSROOT>.
  49        If not given, git-cvsimport tries to read it from
  50        `CVS/Repository`.
  51
  52-C <target-dir>::
  53        The git repository to import to.  If the directory doesn't
  54        exist, it will be created.  Default is the current directory.
  55
  56-r <remote>::
  57        The git remote to import this CVS repository into.
  58        Moves all CVS branches into remotes/<remote>/<branch>
  59        akin to the git-clone --use-separate-remote option.
  60
  61-o <branch-for-HEAD>::
  62        When no remote is specified (via -r) the 'HEAD' branch
  63        from CVS is imported to the 'origin' branch within the git
  64        repository, as 'HEAD' already has a special meaning for git.
  65        When a remote is specified the 'HEAD' branch is named
  66        remotes/<remote>/master mirroring git-clone behaviour.
  67        Use this option if you want to import into a different
  68        branch.
  69+
  70Use '-o master' for continuing an import that was initially done by
  71the old cvs2git tool.
  72
  73-i::
  74        Import-only: don't perform a checkout after importing.  This option
  75        ensures the working directory and index remain untouched and will
  76        not create them if they do not exist.
  77
  78-k::
  79        Kill keywords: will extract files with '-kk' from the CVS archive
  80        to avoid noisy changesets. Highly recommended, but off by default
  81        to preserve compatibility with early imported trees.
  82
  83-u::
  84        Convert underscores in tag and branch names to dots.
  85
  86-s <subst>::
  87        Substitute the character "/" in branch names with <subst>
  88
  89-p <options-for-cvsps>::
  90        Additional options for cvsps.
  91        The options '-u' and '-A' are implicit and should not be used here.
  92+
  93If you need to pass multiple options, separate them with a comma.
  94
  95-z <fuzz>::
  96        Pass the timestamp fuzz factor to cvsps, in seconds. If unset,
  97        cvsps defaults to 300s.
  98
  99-P <cvsps-output-file>::
 100        Instead of calling cvsps, read the provided cvsps output file. Useful
 101        for debugging or when cvsps is being handled outside cvsimport.
 102
 103-m::
 104        Attempt to detect merges based on the commit message. This option
 105        will enable default regexes that try to capture the source
 106        branch name from the commit message.
 107
 108-M <regex>::
 109        Attempt to detect merges based on the commit message with a custom
 110        regex. It can be used with '-m' to enable the default regexes
 111        as well. You must escape forward slashes.
 112+
 113The regex must capture the source branch name in $1.
 114+
 115This option can be used several times to provide several detection regexes.
 116
 117-S <regex>::
 118        Skip paths matching the regex.
 119
 120-a::
 121        Import all commits, including recent ones. cvsimport by default
 122        skips commits that have a timestamp less than 10 minutes ago.
 123
 124-L <limit>::
 125        Limit the number of commits imported. Workaround for cases where
 126        cvsimport leaks memory.
 127
 128-A <author-conv-file>::
 129        CVS by default uses the Unix username when writing its
 130        commit logs. Using this option and an author-conv-file
 131        in this format
 132+
 133---------
 134        exon=Andreas Ericsson <ae@op5.se>
 135        spawn=Simon Pawn <spawn@frog-pond.org>
 136
 137---------
 138+
 139git-cvsimport will make it appear as those authors had
 140their GIT_AUTHOR_NAME and GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL set properly
 141all along.
 142+
 143For convenience, this data is saved to `$GIT_DIR/cvs-authors`
 144each time the '-A' option is provided and read from that same
 145file each time git-cvsimport is run.
 146+
 147It is not recommended to use this feature if you intend to
 148export changes back to CVS again later with
 149linkgit:git-cvsexportcommit[1].
 150
 151-h::
 152        Print a short usage message and exit.
 153
 154OUTPUT
 155------
 156If '-v' is specified, the script reports what it is doing.
 157
 158Otherwise, success is indicated the Unix way, i.e. by simply exiting with
 159a zero exit status.
 160
 161
 162Author
 163------
 164Written by Matthias Urlichs <smurf@smurf.noris.de>, with help from
 165various participants of the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>.
 166
 167Documentation
 168--------------
 169Documentation by Matthias Urlichs <smurf@smurf.noris.de>.
 170
 171GIT
 172---
 173Part of the linkgit:git[7] suite