contrib / git-svn / git-svn.txton commit Merge branch 'jc/cvsimport' (79f558a)
   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 mostly 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
 119ADVANCED OPTIONS
 120----------------
 121-b<refname>::
 122--branch <refname>::
 123        Used with 'fetch' or 'commit'.
 124
 125        This can be used to join arbitrary git branches to remotes/git-svn
 126        on new commits where the tree object is equivalent.
 127
 128        When used with different GIT_SVN_ID values, tags and branches in
 129        SVN can be tracked this way, as can some merges where the heads
 130        end up having completely equivalent content.  This can even be
 131        used to track branches across multiple SVN _repositories_.
 132
 133        This option may be specified multiple times, once for each
 134        branch.
 135
 136-i<GIT_SVN_ID>::
 137--id <GIT_SVN_ID>::
 138        This sets GIT_SVN_ID (instead of using the environment).  See
 139        the section on "Tracking Multiple Repositories or Branches" for
 140        more information on using GIT_SVN_ID.
 141
 142COMPATIBILITY OPTIONS
 143---------------------
 144--upgrade::
 145        Only used with the 'rebuild' command.
 146
 147        Run this if you used an old version of git-svn that used
 148        'git-svn-HEAD' instead of 'remotes/git-svn' as the branch
 149        for tracking the remote.
 150
 151--no-ignore-externals::
 152        Only used with the 'fetch' and 'rebuild' command.
 153
 154        By default, git-svn passes --ignore-externals to svn to avoid
 155        fetching svn:external trees into git.  Pass this flag to enable
 156        externals tracking directly via git.
 157
 158        Versions of svn that do not support --ignore-externals are
 159        automatically detected and this flag will be automatically
 160        enabled for them.
 161
 162        Otherwise, do not enable this flag unless you know what you're
 163        doing.
 164
 165Basic Examples
 166~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 167
 168Tracking and contributing to an Subversion managed-project:
 169
 170# Initialize a tree (like git init-db)::
 171        git-svn init http://svn.foo.org/project/trunk
 172# Fetch remote revisions::
 173        git-svn fetch
 174# Create your own branch to hack on::
 175        git checkout -b my-branch remotes/git-svn
 176# Commit only the git commits you want to SVN::
 177        git-svn commit <tree-ish> [<tree-ish_2> ...]
 178# Commit all the git commits from my-branch that don't exist in SVN::
 179        git-svn commit remotes/git-svn..my-branch
 180# Something is committed to SVN, pull the latest into your branch::
 181        git-svn fetch && git pull . remotes/git-svn
 182# Append svn:ignore settings to the default git exclude file::
 183        git-svn show-ignore >> .git/info/exclude
 184
 185DESIGN PHILOSOPHY
 186-----------------
 187Merge tracking in Subversion is lacking and doing branched development
 188with Subversion is cumbersome as a result.  git-svn completely forgoes
 189any automated merge/branch tracking on the Subversion side and leaves it
 190entirely up to the user on the git side.  It's simply not worth it to do
 191a useful translation when the the original signal is weak.
 192
 193TRACKING MULTIPLE REPOSITORIES OR BRANCHES
 194------------------------------------------
 195This is for advanced users, most users should ignore this section.
 196
 197Because git-svn does not care about relationships between different
 198branches or directories in a Subversion repository, git-svn has a simple
 199hack to allow it to track an arbitrary number of related _or_ unrelated
 200SVN repositories via one git repository.  Simply set the GIT_SVN_ID
 201environment variable to a name other other than "git-svn" (the default)
 202and git-svn will ignore the contents of the $GIT_DIR/git-svn directory
 203and instead do all of its work in $GIT_DIR/$GIT_SVN_ID for that
 204invocation.  The interface branch will be remotes/$GIT_SVN_ID, instead of
 205remotes/git-svn.  Any remotes/$GIT_SVN_ID branch should never be modified
 206by the user outside of git-svn commands.
 207
 208ADDITIONAL FETCH ARGUMENTS
 209--------------------------
 210This is for advanced users, most users should ignore this section.
 211
 212Unfetched SVN revisions may be imported as children of existing commits
 213by specifying additional arguments to 'fetch'.  Additional parents may
 214optionally be specified in the form of sha1 hex sums at the
 215command-line.  Unfetched SVN revisions may also be tied to particular
 216git commits with the following syntax:
 217
 218        svn_revision_number=git_commit_sha1
 219
 220This allows you to tie unfetched SVN revision 375 to your current HEAD::
 221
 222        git-svn fetch 375=$(git-rev-parse HEAD)
 223
 224Advanced Example: Tracking a Reorganized Repository
 225~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 226If you're tracking a directory that has moved, or otherwise been
 227branched or tagged off of another directory in the repository and you
 228care about the full history of the project, then you can read this
 229section.
 230
 231This is how Yann Dirson tracked the trunk of the ufoai directory when
 232the /trunk directory of his repository was moved to /ufoai/trunk and
 233he needed to continue tracking /ufoai/trunk where /trunk left off.
 234
 235        # This log message shows when the repository was reorganized::
 236        r166 | ydirson | 2006-03-02 01:36:55 +0100 (Thu, 02 Mar 2006) | 1 line
 237        Changed paths:
 238           D /trunk
 239           A /ufoai/trunk (from /trunk:165)
 240
 241        # First we start tracking the old revisions::
 242        GIT_SVN_ID=git-oldsvn git-svn init \
 243              https://svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/ufoai/trunk
 244        GIT_SVN_ID=git-oldsvn git-svn fetch -r1:165
 245
 246        # And now, we continue tracking the new revisions::
 247        GIT_SVN_ID=git-newsvn git-svn init \
 248              https://svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/ufoai/ufoai/trunk
 249        GIT_SVN_ID=git-newsvn git-svn fetch \
 250              166=`git-rev-parse refs/remotes/git-oldsvn`
 251
 252BUGS
 253----
 254If somebody commits a conflicting changeset to SVN at a bad moment
 255(right before you commit) causing a conflict and your commit to fail,
 256your svn working tree ($GIT_DIR/git-svn/tree) may be dirtied.  The
 257easiest thing to do is probably just to rm -rf $GIT_DIR/git-svn/tree and
 258run 'rebuild'.
 259
 260We ignore all SVN properties except svn:executable.  Too difficult to
 261map them since we rely heavily on git write-tree being _exactly_ the
 262same on both the SVN and git working trees and I prefer not to clutter
 263working trees with metadata files.
 264
 265svn:keywords can't be ignored in Subversion (at least I don't know of
 266a way to ignore them).
 267
 268Renamed and copied directories are not detected by git and hence not
 269tracked when committing to SVN.  I do not plan on adding support for
 270this as it's quite difficult and time-consuming to get working for all
 271the possible corner cases (git doesn't do it, either).  Renamed and
 272copied files are fully supported if they're similar enough for git to
 273detect them.
 274
 275Author
 276------
 277Written by Eric Wong <normalperson@yhbt.net>.
 278
 279Documentation
 280-------------
 281Written by Eric Wong <normalperson@yhbt.net>.