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>] [-R] [<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 27*WARNING:* for certain situations the import leads to incorrect results. 28Please see the section <<issues,ISSUES>> for further reference. 29 30You should *never* do any work of your own on the branches that are 31created by 'git cvsimport'. By default initial import will create and populate a 32"master" branch from the CVS repository's main branch which you're free 33to work with; after that, you need to 'git merge' incremental imports, or 34any CVS branches, yourself. It is advisable to specify a named remote via 35-r to separate and protect the incoming branches. 36 37If you intend to set up a shared public repository that all developers can 38read/write, or if you want to use linkgit:git-cvsserver[1], then you 39probably want to make a bare clone of the imported repository, 40and use the clone as the shared repository. 41See linkgit:gitcvs-migration[7]. 42 43 44OPTIONS 45------- 46-v:: 47 Verbosity: let 'cvsimport' report what it is doing. 48 49-d <CVSROOT>:: 50 The root of the CVS archive. May be local (a simple path) or remote; 51 currently, only the :local:, :ext: and :pserver: access methods 52 are supported. If not given, 'git cvsimport' will try to read it 53 from `CVS/Root`. If no such file exists, it checks for the 54 `CVSROOT` environment variable. 55 56<CVS_module>:: 57 The CVS module you want to import. Relative to <CVSROOT>. 58 If not given, 'git cvsimport' tries to read it from 59 `CVS/Repository`. 60 61-C <target-dir>:: 62 The git repository to import to. If the directory doesn't 63 exist, it will be created. Default is the current directory. 64 65-r <remote>:: 66 The git remote to import this CVS repository into. 67 Moves all CVS branches into remotes/<remote>/<branch> 68 akin to the way 'git clone' uses 'origin' by default. 69 70-o <branch-for-HEAD>:: 71 When no remote is specified (via -r) the 'HEAD' branch 72 from CVS is imported to the 'origin' branch within the git 73 repository, as 'HEAD' already has a special meaning for git. 74 When a remote is specified the 'HEAD' branch is named 75 remotes/<remote>/master mirroring 'git clone' behaviour. 76 Use this option if you want to import into a different 77 branch. 78+ 79Use '-o master' for continuing an import that was initially done by 80the old cvs2git tool. 81 82-i:: 83 Import-only: don't perform a checkout after importing. This option 84 ensures the working directory and index remain untouched and will 85 not create them if they do not exist. 86 87-k:: 88 Kill keywords: will extract files with '-kk' from the CVS archive 89 to avoid noisy changesets. Highly recommended, but off by default 90 to preserve compatibility with early imported trees. 91 92-u:: 93 Convert underscores in tag and branch names to dots. 94 95-s <subst>:: 96 Substitute the character "/" in branch names with <subst> 97 98-p <options-for-cvsps>:: 99 Additional options for cvsps. 100 The options '-u' and '-A' are implicit and should not be used here. 101+ 102If you need to pass multiple options, separate them with a comma. 103 104-z <fuzz>:: 105 Pass the timestamp fuzz factor to cvsps, in seconds. If unset, 106 cvsps defaults to 300s. 107 108-P <cvsps-output-file>:: 109 Instead of calling cvsps, read the provided cvsps output file. Useful 110 for debugging or when cvsps is being handled outside cvsimport. 111 112-m:: 113 Attempt to detect merges based on the commit message. This option 114 will enable default regexes that try to capture the source 115 branch name from the commit message. 116 117-M <regex>:: 118 Attempt to detect merges based on the commit message with a custom 119 regex. It can be used with '-m' to enable the default regexes 120 as well. You must escape forward slashes. 121+ 122The regex must capture the source branch name in $1. 123+ 124This option can be used several times to provide several detection regexes. 125 126-S <regex>:: 127 Skip paths matching the regex. 128 129-a:: 130 Import all commits, including recent ones. cvsimport by default 131 skips commits that have a timestamp less than 10 minutes ago. 132 133-L <limit>:: 134 Limit the number of commits imported. Workaround for cases where 135 cvsimport leaks memory. 136 137-A <author-conv-file>:: 138 CVS by default uses the Unix username when writing its 139 commit logs. Using this option and an author-conv-file 140 in this format 141+ 142--------- 143 exon=Andreas Ericsson <ae@op5.se> 144 spawn=Simon Pawn <spawn@frog-pond.org> 145 146--------- 147+ 148'git cvsimport' will make it appear as those authors had 149their GIT_AUTHOR_NAME and GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL set properly 150all along. 151+ 152For convenience, this data is saved to `$GIT_DIR/cvs-authors` 153each time the '-A' option is provided and read from that same 154file each time 'git cvsimport' is run. 155+ 156It is not recommended to use this feature if you intend to 157export changes back to CVS again later with 158'git cvsexportcommit'. 159 160-R:: 161 Generate a `$GIT_DIR/cvs-revisions` file containing a mapping from CVS 162 revision numbers to newly-created Git commit IDs. The generated file 163 will contain one line for each (filename, revision) pair imported; 164 each line will look like 165+ 166--------- 167src/widget.c 1.1 1d862f173cdc7325b6fa6d2ae1cfd61fd1b512b7 168--------- 169+ 170The revision data is appended to the file if it already exists, for use when 171doing incremental imports. 172+ 173This option may be useful if you have CVS revision numbers stored in commit 174messages, bug-tracking systems, email archives, and the like. 175 176-h:: 177 Print a short usage message and exit. 178 179OUTPUT 180------ 181If '-v' is specified, the script reports what it is doing. 182 183Otherwise, success is indicated the Unix way, i.e. by simply exiting with 184a zero exit status. 185 186[[issues]] 187ISSUES 188------ 189Problems related to timestamps: 190 191 * If timestamps of commits in the CVS repository are not stable enough 192 to be used for ordering commits changes may show up in the wrong 193 order. 194 * If any files were ever "cvs import"ed more than once (e.g., import of 195 more than one vendor release) the HEAD contains the wrong content. 196 * If the timestamp order of different files cross the revision order 197 within the commit matching time window the order of commits may be 198 wrong. 199 200Problems related to branches: 201 202 * Branches on which no commits have been made are not imported. 203 * All files from the branching point are added to a branch even if 204 never added in CVS. 205 * This applies to files added to the source branch *after* a daughter 206 branch was created: if previously no commit was made on the daughter 207 branch they will erroneously be added to the daughter branch in git. 208 209Problems related to tags: 210 211* Multiple tags on the same revision are not imported. 212 213If you suspect that any of these issues may apply to the repository you 214want to import consider using these alternative tools which proved to be 215more stable in practice: 216 217* cvs2git (part of cvs2svn), `http://cvs2svn.tigris.org` 218* parsecvs, `http://cgit.freedesktop.org/~keithp/parsecvs` 219 220Author 221------ 222Written by Matthias Urlichs <smurf@smurf.noris.de>, with help from 223various participants of the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>. 224 225Documentation 226-------------- 227Documentation by Matthias Urlichs <smurf@smurf.noris.de>. 228 229GIT 230--- 231Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite