Documentation / git-svn.txton commit checkout: tone down the "forked status" diagnostic messages (b0030db)
   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 Subversion and git.
  15It is not to be confused with linkgit:git-svnimport[1], which is
  16read-only.
  17
  18git-svn was originally designed for an individual developer who wants a
  19bidirectional flow of changesets between a single branch in Subversion
  20and an arbitrary number of branches in git.  Since its inception,
  21git-svn has gained the ability to track multiple branches in a manner
  22similar to git-svnimport.
  23
  24git-svn is especially useful when it comes to tracking repositories
  25not organized in the way Subversion developers recommend (trunk,
  26branches, tags directories).
  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--username=<USER>;;
  65        For transports that SVN handles authentication for (http,
  66        https, and plain svn), specify the username.  For other
  67        transports (eg svn+ssh://), you must include the username in
  68        the URL, eg svn+ssh://foo@svn.bar.com/project
  69--prefix=<prefix>;;
  70        This allows one to specify a prefix which is prepended
  71        to the names of remotes if trunk/branches/tags are
  72        specified.  The prefix does not automatically include a
  73        trailing slash, so be sure you include one in the
  74        argument if that is what you want.  If --branches/-b is
  75        specified, the prefix must include a trailing slash.
  76        Setting a prefix is useful if you wish to track multiple
  77        projects that share a common repository.
  78
  79'fetch'::
  80        Fetch unfetched revisions from the Subversion remote we are
  81        tracking.  The name of the [svn-remote "..."] section in the
  82        .git/config file may be specified as an optional command-line
  83        argument.
  84
  85'clone'::
  86        Runs 'init' and 'fetch'.  It will automatically create a
  87        directory based on the basename of the URL passed to it;
  88        or if a second argument is passed; it will create a directory
  89        and work within that.  It accepts all arguments that the
  90        'init' and 'fetch' commands accept; with the exception of
  91        '--fetch-all'.   After a repository is cloned, the 'fetch'
  92        command will be able to update revisions without affecting
  93        the working tree; and the 'rebase' command will be able
  94        to update the working tree with the latest changes.
  95
  96'rebase'::
  97        This fetches revisions from the SVN parent of the current HEAD
  98        and rebases the current (uncommitted to SVN) work against it.
  99
 100This works similarly to 'svn update' or 'git-pull' except that
 101it preserves linear history with 'git-rebase' instead of
 102'git-merge' for ease of dcommiting with git-svn.
 103
 104This accepts all options that 'git-svn fetch' and 'git-rebase'
 105accepts.  However '--fetch-all' only fetches from the current
 106[svn-remote], and not all [svn-remote] definitions.
 107
 108Like 'git-rebase'; this requires that the working tree be clean
 109and have no uncommitted changes.
 110
 111-l;;
 112--local;;
 113        Do not fetch remotely; only run 'git-rebase' against the
 114        last fetched commit from the upstream SVN.
 115
 116'dcommit'::
 117        Commit each diff from a specified head directly to the SVN
 118        repository, and then rebase or reset (depending on whether or
 119        not there is a diff between SVN and head).  This will create
 120        a revision in SVN for each commit in git.
 121        It is recommended that you run git-svn fetch and rebase (not
 122        pull or merge) your commits against the latest changes in the
 123        SVN repository.
 124        An optional command-line argument may be specified as an
 125        alternative to HEAD.
 126        This is advantageous over 'set-tree' (below) because it produces
 127        cleaner, more linear history.
 128+
 129--no-rebase;;
 130        After committing, do not rebase or reset.
 131--
 132
 133'log'::
 134        This should make it easy to look up svn log messages when svn
 135        users refer to -r/--revision numbers.
 136+
 137The following features from `svn log' are supported:
 138+
 139--
 140--revision=<n>[:<n>];;
 141        is supported, non-numeric args are not:
 142        HEAD, NEXT, BASE, PREV, etc ...
 143-v/--verbose;;
 144        it's not completely compatible with the --verbose
 145        output in svn log, but reasonably close.
 146--limit=<n>;;
 147        is NOT the same as --max-count, doesn't count
 148        merged/excluded commits
 149--incremental;;
 150        supported
 151--
 152+
 153New features:
 154+
 155--
 156--show-commit;;
 157        shows the git commit sha1, as well
 158--oneline;;
 159        our version of --pretty=oneline
 160--
 161+
 162Any other arguments are passed directly to `git log'
 163
 164--
 165'find-rev'::
 166        When given an SVN revision number of the form 'rN', returns the
 167        corresponding git commit hash (this can optionally be followed by a
 168        tree-ish to specify which branch should be searched).  When given a
 169        tree-ish, returns the corresponding SVN revision number.
 170
 171'set-tree'::
 172        You should consider using 'dcommit' instead of this command.
 173        Commit specified commit or tree objects to SVN.  This relies on
 174        your imported fetch data being up-to-date.  This makes
 175        absolutely no attempts to do patching when committing to SVN, it
 176        simply overwrites files with those specified in the tree or
 177        commit.  All merging is assumed to have taken place
 178        independently of git-svn functions.
 179
 180'show-ignore'::
 181        Recursively finds and lists the svn:ignore property on
 182        directories.  The output is suitable for appending to
 183        the $GIT_DIR/info/exclude file.
 184
 185'commit-diff'::
 186        Commits the diff of two tree-ish arguments from the
 187        command-line.  This command is intended for interoperability with
 188        git-svnimport and does not rely on being inside an git-svn
 189        init-ed repository.  This command takes three arguments, (a) the
 190        original tree to diff against, (b) the new tree result, (c) the
 191        URL of the target Subversion repository.  The final argument
 192        (URL) may be omitted if you are working from a git-svn-aware
 193        repository (that has been init-ed with git-svn).
 194        The -r<revision> option is required for this.
 195
 196'info'::
 197        Shows information about a file or directory similar to what
 198        `svn info' provides.  Does not currently support a -r/--revision
 199        argument.  Use the --url option to output only the value of the
 200        'URL:' field.
 201
 202--
 203
 204OPTIONS
 205-------
 206--
 207
 208--shared[={false|true|umask|group|all|world|everybody}]::
 209--template=<template_directory>::
 210        Only used with the 'init' command.
 211        These are passed directly to linkgit:git-init[1].
 212
 213-r <ARG>::
 214--revision <ARG>::
 215
 216Used with the 'fetch' command.
 217
 218This allows revision ranges for partial/cauterized history
 219to be supported.  $NUMBER, $NUMBER1:$NUMBER2 (numeric ranges),
 220$NUMBER:HEAD, and BASE:$NUMBER are all supported.
 221
 222This can allow you to make partial mirrors when running fetch;
 223but is generally not recommended because history will be skipped
 224and lost.
 225
 226-::
 227--stdin::
 228
 229Only used with the 'set-tree' command.
 230
 231Read a list of commits from stdin and commit them in reverse
 232order.  Only the leading sha1 is read from each line, so
 233git-rev-list --pretty=oneline output can be used.
 234
 235--rmdir::
 236
 237Only used with the 'dcommit', 'set-tree' and 'commit-diff' commands.
 238
 239Remove directories from the SVN tree if there are no files left
 240behind.  SVN can version empty directories, and they are not
 241removed by default if there are no files left in them.  git
 242cannot version empty directories.  Enabling this flag will make
 243the commit to SVN act like git.
 244
 245config key: svn.rmdir
 246
 247-e::
 248--edit::
 249
 250Only used with the 'dcommit', 'set-tree' and 'commit-diff' commands.
 251
 252Edit the commit message before committing to SVN.  This is off by
 253default for objects that are commits, and forced on when committing
 254tree objects.
 255
 256config key: svn.edit
 257
 258-l<num>::
 259--find-copies-harder::
 260
 261Only used with the 'dcommit', 'set-tree' and 'commit-diff' commands.
 262
 263They are both passed directly to git-diff-tree see
 264linkgit:git-diff-tree[1] for more information.
 265
 266[verse]
 267config key: svn.l
 268config key: svn.findcopiesharder
 269
 270-A<filename>::
 271--authors-file=<filename>::
 272
 273Syntax is compatible with the files used by git-svnimport and
 274git-cvsimport:
 275
 276------------------------------------------------------------------------
 277        loginname = Joe User <user@example.com>
 278------------------------------------------------------------------------
 279
 280If this option is specified and git-svn encounters an SVN
 281committer name that does not exist in the authors-file, git-svn
 282will abort operation. The user will then have to add the
 283appropriate entry.  Re-running the previous git-svn command
 284after the authors-file is modified should continue operation.
 285
 286config key: svn.authorsfile
 287
 288-q::
 289--quiet::
 290        Make git-svn less verbose.
 291
 292--repack[=<n>]::
 293--repack-flags=<flags>::
 294
 295These should help keep disk usage sane for large fetches
 296with many revisions.
 297
 298--repack takes an optional argument for the number of revisions
 299to fetch before repacking.  This defaults to repacking every
 3001000 commits fetched if no argument is specified.
 301
 302--repack-flags are passed directly to linkgit:git-repack[1].
 303
 304[verse]
 305config key: svn.repack
 306config key: svn.repackflags
 307
 308-m::
 309--merge::
 310-s<strategy>::
 311--strategy=<strategy>::
 312
 313These are only used with the 'dcommit' and 'rebase' commands.
 314
 315Passed directly to git-rebase when using 'dcommit' if a
 316'git-reset' cannot be used (see dcommit).
 317
 318-n::
 319--dry-run::
 320
 321This is only used with the 'dcommit' command.
 322
 323Print out the series of git arguments that would show
 324which diffs would be committed to SVN.
 325
 326--
 327
 328ADVANCED OPTIONS
 329----------------
 330--
 331
 332-i<GIT_SVN_ID>::
 333--id <GIT_SVN_ID>::
 334
 335This sets GIT_SVN_ID (instead of using the environment).  This
 336allows the user to override the default refname to fetch from
 337when tracking a single URL.  The 'log' and 'dcommit' commands
 338no longer require this switch as an argument.
 339
 340-R<remote name>::
 341--svn-remote <remote name>::
 342        Specify the [svn-remote "<remote name>"] section to use,
 343        this allows SVN multiple repositories to be tracked.
 344        Default: "svn"
 345
 346--follow-parent::
 347        This is especially helpful when we're tracking a directory
 348        that has been moved around within the repository, or if we
 349        started tracking a branch and never tracked the trunk it was
 350        descended from. This feature is enabled by default, use
 351        --no-follow-parent to disable it.
 352
 353config key: svn.followparent
 354
 355--
 356CONFIG FILE-ONLY OPTIONS
 357------------------------
 358--
 359
 360svn.noMetadata::
 361svn-remote.<name>.noMetadata::
 362
 363This gets rid of the git-svn-id: lines at the end of every commit.
 364
 365If you lose your .git/svn/git-svn/.rev_db file, git-svn will not
 366be able to rebuild it and you won't be able to fetch again,
 367either.  This is fine for one-shot imports.
 368
 369The 'git-svn log' command will not work on repositories using
 370this, either.  Using this conflicts with the 'useSvmProps'
 371option for (hopefully) obvious reasons.
 372
 373svn.useSvmProps::
 374svn-remote.<name>.useSvmProps::
 375
 376This allows git-svn to re-map repository URLs and UUIDs from
 377mirrors created using SVN::Mirror (or svk) for metadata.
 378
 379If an SVN revision has a property, "svm:headrev", it is likely
 380that the revision was created by SVN::Mirror (also used by SVK).
 381The property contains a repository UUID and a revision.  We want
 382to make it look like we are mirroring the original URL, so
 383introduce a helper function that returns the original identity
 384URL and UUID, and use it when generating metadata in commit
 385messages.
 386
 387svn.useSvnsyncProps::
 388svn-remote.<name>.useSvnsyncprops::
 389        Similar to the useSvmProps option; this is for users
 390        of the svnsync(1) command distributed with SVN 1.4.x and
 391        later.
 392
 393svn-remote.<name>.rewriteRoot::
 394        This allows users to create repositories from alternate
 395        URLs.  For example, an administrator could run git-svn on the
 396        server locally (accessing via file://) but wish to distribute
 397        the repository with a public http:// or svn:// URL in the
 398        metadata so users of it will see the public URL.
 399
 400Since the noMetadata, rewriteRoot, useSvnsyncProps and useSvmProps
 401options all affect the metadata generated and used by git-svn; they
 402*must* be set in the configuration file before any history is imported
 403and these settings should never be changed once they are set.
 404
 405Additionally, only one of these four options can be used per-svn-remote
 406section because they affect the 'git-svn-id:' metadata line.
 407
 408--
 409
 410BASIC EXAMPLES
 411--------------
 412
 413Tracking and contributing to the trunk of a Subversion-managed project:
 414
 415------------------------------------------------------------------------
 416# Clone a repo (like git clone):
 417        git-svn clone http://svn.foo.org/project/trunk
 418# Enter the newly cloned directory:
 419        cd trunk
 420# You should be on master branch, double-check with git-branch
 421        git branch
 422# Do some work and commit locally to git:
 423        git commit ...
 424# Something is committed to SVN, rebase your local changes against the
 425# latest changes in SVN:
 426        git-svn rebase
 427# Now commit your changes (that were committed previously using git) to SVN,
 428# as well as automatically updating your working HEAD:
 429        git-svn dcommit
 430# Append svn:ignore settings to the default git exclude file:
 431        git-svn show-ignore >> .git/info/exclude
 432------------------------------------------------------------------------
 433
 434Tracking and contributing to an entire Subversion-managed project
 435(complete with a trunk, tags and branches):
 436
 437------------------------------------------------------------------------
 438# Clone a repo (like git clone):
 439        git-svn clone http://svn.foo.org/project -T trunk -b branches -t tags
 440# View all branches and tags you have cloned:
 441        git branch -r
 442# Reset your master to trunk (or any other branch, replacing 'trunk'
 443# with the appropriate name):
 444        git reset --hard remotes/trunk
 445# You may only dcommit to one branch/tag/trunk at a time.  The usage
 446# of dcommit/rebase/show-ignore should be the same as above.
 447------------------------------------------------------------------------
 448
 449The initial 'git-svn clone' can be quite time-consuming
 450(especially for large Subversion repositories). If multiple
 451people (or one person with multiple machines) want to use
 452git-svn to interact with the same Subversion repository, you can
 453do the initial 'git-svn clone' to a repository on a server and
 454have each person clone that repository with 'git clone':
 455
 456------------------------------------------------------------------------
 457# Do the initial import on a server
 458        ssh server "cd /pub && git-svn clone http://svn.foo.org/project
 459# Clone locally
 460        git clone server:/pub/project
 461# Tell git-svn which branch contains the Subversion commits
 462        git update-ref refs/remotes/git-svn origin/master
 463# Initialize git-svn locally (be sure to use the same URL and -T/-b/-t options as were used on server)
 464        git-svn init http://svn.foo.org/project
 465# Pull the latest changes from Subversion
 466        git-svn rebase
 467------------------------------------------------------------------------
 468
 469REBASE VS. PULL/MERGE
 470---------------------
 471
 472Originally, git-svn recommended that the remotes/git-svn branch be
 473pulled or merged from.  This is because the author favored
 474'git-svn set-tree B' to commit a single head rather than the
 475'git-svn set-tree A..B' notation to commit multiple commits.
 476
 477If you use 'git-svn set-tree A..B' to commit several diffs and you do
 478not have the latest remotes/git-svn merged into my-branch, you should
 479use 'git-svn rebase' to update your work branch instead of 'git pull' or
 480'git merge'.  'pull/merge' can cause non-linear history to be flattened
 481when committing into SVN, which can lead to merge commits reversing
 482previous commits in SVN.
 483
 484DESIGN PHILOSOPHY
 485-----------------
 486Merge tracking in Subversion is lacking and doing branched development
 487with Subversion can be cumbersome as a result.  While git-svn can track
 488copy history (including branches and tags) for repositories adopting a
 489standard layout, it cannot yet represent merge history that happened
 490inside git back upstream to SVN users.  Therefore it is advised that
 491users keep history as linear as possible inside git to ease
 492compatibility with SVN (see the CAVEATS section below).
 493
 494CAVEATS
 495-------
 496
 497For the sake of simplicity and interoperating with a less-capable system
 498(SVN), it is recommended that all git-svn users clone, fetch and dcommit
 499directly from the SVN server, and avoid all git-clone/pull/merge/push
 500operations between git repositories and branches.  The recommended
 501method of exchanging code between git branches and users is
 502git-format-patch and git-am, or just dcommiting to the SVN repository.
 503
 504Running 'git-merge' or 'git-pull' is NOT recommended on a branch you
 505plan to dcommit from.  Subversion does not represent merges in any
 506reasonable or useful fashion; so users using Subversion cannot see any
 507merges you've made.  Furthermore, if you merge or pull from a git branch
 508that is a mirror of an SVN branch, dcommit may commit to the wrong
 509branch.
 510
 511'git-clone' does not clone branches under the refs/remotes/ hierarchy or
 512any git-svn metadata, or config.  So repositories created and managed with
 513using git-svn should use rsync(1) for cloning, if cloning is to be done
 514at all.
 515
 516Since 'dcommit' uses rebase internally, any git branches you git-push to
 517before dcommit on will require forcing an overwrite of the existing ref
 518on the remote repository.  This is generally considered bad practice,
 519see the git-push(1) documentation for details.
 520
 521Do not use the --amend option of git-commit(1) on a change you've
 522already dcommitted.  It is considered bad practice to --amend commits
 523you've already pushed to a remote repository for other users, and
 524dcommit with SVN is analogous to that.
 525
 526BUGS
 527----
 528
 529We ignore all SVN properties except svn:executable.  Any unhandled
 530properties are logged to $GIT_DIR/svn/<refname>/unhandled.log
 531
 532Renamed and copied directories are not detected by git and hence not
 533tracked when committing to SVN.  I do not plan on adding support for
 534this as it's quite difficult and time-consuming to get working for all
 535the possible corner cases (git doesn't do it, either).  Committing
 536renamed and copied files are fully supported if they're similar enough
 537for git to detect them.
 538
 539CONFIGURATION
 540-------------
 541
 542git-svn stores [svn-remote] configuration information in the
 543repository .git/config file.  It is similar the core git
 544[remote] sections except 'fetch' keys do not accept glob
 545arguments; but they are instead handled by the 'branches'
 546and 'tags' keys.  Since some SVN repositories are oddly
 547configured with multiple projects glob expansions such those
 548listed below are allowed:
 549
 550------------------------------------------------------------------------
 551[svn-remote "project-a"]
 552        url = http://server.org/svn
 553        branches = branches/*/project-a:refs/remotes/project-a/branches/*
 554        tags = tags/*/project-a:refs/remotes/project-a/tags/*
 555        trunk = trunk/project-a:refs/remotes/project-a/trunk
 556------------------------------------------------------------------------
 557
 558Keep in mind that the '*' (asterisk) wildcard of the local ref
 559(right of the ':') *must* be the farthest right path component;
 560however the remote wildcard may be anywhere as long as it's own
 561independent path component (surrounded by '/' or EOL).   This
 562type of configuration is not automatically created by 'init' and
 563should be manually entered with a text-editor or using
 564linkgit:git-config[1]
 565
 566SEE ALSO
 567--------
 568linkgit:git-rebase[1]
 569
 570Author
 571------
 572Written by Eric Wong <normalperson@yhbt.net>.
 573
 574Documentation
 575-------------
 576Written by Eric Wong <normalperson@yhbt.net>.