contrib / git-svn / git-svn.txton commit contrib/git-svn: optimize sequential commits to svn (e17512f)
   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 completely 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/git-svn-HEAD will be updated to the latest revision.
  45
  46commit::
  47        Commit specified commit or tree objects to SVN.  This relies on
  48        your imported fetch data being up-to-date.  This makes
  49        absolutely no attempts to do patching when committing to SVN, it
  50        simply overwrites files with those specified in the tree or
  51        commit.  All merging is assumed to have taken place
  52        independently of git-svn functions.
  53
  54rebuild::
  55        Not a part of daily usage, but this is a useful command if
  56        you've just cloned a repository (using git-clone) that was
  57        tracked with git-svn.  Unfortunately, git-clone does not clone
  58        git-svn metadata and the svn working tree that git-svn uses for
  59        its operations.  This rebuilds the metadata so git-svn can
  60        resume fetch operations.  SVN_URL may be optionally specified if
  61        the directory/repository you're tracking has moved or changed
  62        protocols.
  63
  64show-ignore::
  65        Recursively finds and lists the svn:ignore property on
  66        directories.  The output is suitable for appending to
  67        the $GIT_DIR/info/exclude file.
  68
  69OPTIONS
  70-------
  71-r <ARG>::
  72--revision <ARG>::
  73        Only used with the 'fetch' command.
  74
  75        Takes any valid -r<argument> svn would accept and passes it
  76        directly to svn. -r<ARG1>:<ARG2> ranges and "{" DATE "}" syntax
  77        is also supported.  This is passed directly to svn, see svn
  78        documentation for more details.
  79
  80        This can allow you to make partial mirrors when running fetch.
  81
  82-::
  83--stdin::
  84        Only used with the 'commit' command.
  85
  86        Read a list of commits from stdin and commit them in reverse
  87        order.  Only the leading sha1 is read from each line, so
  88        git-rev-list --pretty=oneline output can be used.
  89
  90--rmdir::
  91        Only used with the 'commit' command.
  92
  93        Remove directories from the SVN tree if there are no files left
  94        behind.  SVN can version empty directories, and they are not
  95        removed by default if there are no files left in them.  git
  96        cannot version empty directories.  Enabling this flag will make
  97        the commit to SVN act like git.
  98
  99-e::
 100--edit::
 101        Only used with the 'commit' command.
 102
 103        Edit the commit message before committing to SVN.  This is off by
 104        default for objects that are commits, and forced on when committing
 105        tree objects.
 106
 107-l<num>::
 108--find-copies-harder::
 109        Both of these are only used with the 'commit' command.
 110
 111        They are both passed directly to git-diff-tree see
 112        git-diff-tree(1) for more information.
 113
 114COMPATIBILITY OPTIONS
 115---------------------
 116--no-ignore-externals::
 117        Only used with the 'fetch' and 'rebuild' command.
 118
 119        By default, git-svn passes --ignore-externals to svn to avoid
 120        fetching svn:external trees into git.  Pass this flag to enable
 121        externals tracking directly via git.
 122
 123        Versions of svn that do not support --ignore-externals are
 124        automatically detected and this flag will be automatically
 125        enabled for them.
 126
 127        Otherwise, do not enable this flag unless you know what you're
 128        doing.
 129
 130--no-stop-on-copy::
 131        Only used with the 'fetch' command.
 132
 133        By default, git-svn passes --stop-on-copy to avoid dealing with
 134        the copied/renamed branch directory problem entirely.  A
 135        copied/renamed branch is the result of a <SVN_URL> being created
 136        in the past from a different source.  These are problematic to
 137        deal with even when working purely with svn if you work inside
 138        subdirectories.
 139
 140        Do not use this flag unless you know exactly what you're getting
 141        yourself into.  You have been warned.
 142
 143Examples
 144~~~~~~~~
 145
 146Tracking and contributing to an Subversion managed-project:
 147
 148# Initialize a tree (like git init-db)::
 149        git-svn init http://svn.foo.org/project/trunk
 150# Fetch remote revisions::
 151        git-svn fetch
 152# Create your own branch to hack on::
 153        git checkout -b my-branch git-svn-HEAD
 154# Commit only the git commits you want to SVN::
 155        git-svn commit <tree-ish> [<tree-ish_2> ...]
 156# Commit all the git commits from my-branch that don't exist in SVN::
 157        git commit git-svn-HEAD..my-branch
 158# Something is committed to SVN, pull the latest into your branch::
 159        git-svn fetch && git pull . git-svn-HEAD
 160# Append svn:ignore settings to the default git exclude file:
 161        git-svn show-ignore >> .git/info/exclude
 162
 163DESIGN PHILOSOPHY
 164-----------------
 165Merge tracking in Subversion is lacking and doing branched development
 166with Subversion is cumbersome as a result.  git-svn completely forgoes
 167any automated merge/branch tracking on the Subversion side and leaves it
 168entirely up to the user on the git side.  It's simply not worth it to do
 169a useful translation when the the original signal is weak.
 170
 171TRACKING MULTIPLE REPOSITORIES OR BRANCHES
 172------------------------------------------
 173This is for advanced users, most users should ignore this section.
 174
 175Because git-svn does not care about relationships between different
 176branches or directories in a Subversion repository, git-svn has a simple
 177hack to allow it to track an arbitrary number of related _or_ unrelated
 178SVN repositories via one git repository.  Simply set the GIT_SVN_ID
 179environment variable to a name other other than "git-svn" (the default)
 180and git-svn will ignore the contents of the $GIT_DIR/git-svn directory
 181and instead do all of its work in $GIT_DIR/$GIT_SVN_ID for that
 182invocation.
 183
 184ADDITIONAL FETCH ARGUMENTS
 185--------------------------
 186This is for advanced users, most users should ignore this section.
 187
 188Unfetched SVN revisions may be imported as children of existing commits
 189by specifying additional arguments to 'fetch'.  Additional parents may
 190optionally be specified in the form of sha1 hex sums at the
 191command-line.  Unfetched SVN revisions may also be tied to particular
 192git commits with the following syntax:
 193
 194        svn_revision_number=git_commit_sha1
 195
 196This allows you to tie unfetched SVN revision 375 to your current HEAD::
 197
 198        git-svn fetch 375=$(git-rev-parse HEAD)
 199
 200BUGS
 201----
 202If somebody commits a conflicting changeset to SVN at a bad moment
 203(right before you commit) causing a conflict and your commit to fail,
 204your svn working tree ($GIT_DIR/git-svn/tree) may be dirtied.  The
 205easiest thing to do is probably just to rm -rf $GIT_DIR/git-svn/tree and
 206run 'rebuild'.
 207
 208We ignore all SVN properties except svn:executable.  Too difficult to
 209map them since we rely heavily on git write-tree being _exactly_ the
 210same on both the SVN and git working trees and I prefer not to clutter
 211working trees with metadata files.
 212
 213svn:keywords can't be ignored in Subversion (at least I don't know of
 214a way to ignore them).
 215
 216Renamed and copied directories are not detected by git and hence not
 217tracked when committing to SVN.  I do not plan on adding support for
 218this as it's quite difficult and time-consuming to get working for all
 219the possible corner cases (git doesn't do it, either).  Renamed and
 220copied files are fully supported if they're similar enough for git to
 221detect them.
 222
 223Author
 224------
 225Written by Eric Wong <normalperson@yhbt.net>.
 226
 227Documentation
 228-------------
 229Written by Eric Wong <normalperson@yhbt.net>.