6 git-svn - Bidirectional operation between a Subversion repository and Git
11 'git svn' <command> [options] [arguments]
15 'git svn' is a simple conduit for changesets between Subversion and Git.
16 It provides a bidirectional flow of changes between a Subversion and a Git
19 'git svn' can track a standard Subversion repository,
20 following the common "trunk/branches/tags" layout, with the --stdlayout option.
21 It can also follow branches and tags in any layout with the -T/-t/-b options
22 (see options to 'init' below, and also the 'clone' command).
24 Once tracking a Subversion repository (with any of the above methods), the Git
25 repository can be updated from Subversion by the 'fetch' command and
26 Subversion updated from Git by the 'dcommit' command.
32 Initializes an empty Git repository with additional
33 metadata directories for 'git svn'. The Subversion URL
34 may be specified as a command-line argument, or as full
35 URL arguments to -T/-t/-b. Optionally, the target
36 directory to operate on can be specified as a second
37 argument. Normally this command initializes the current
41 --trunk=<trunk_subdir>;;
43 --tags=<tags_subdir>;;
45 --branches=<branches_subdir>;;
48 These are optional command-line options for init. Each of
49 these flags can point to a relative repository path
50 (--tags=project/tags) or a full url
51 (--tags=https://foo.org/project/tags).
52 You can specify more than one --tags and/or --branches options, in case
53 your Subversion repository places tags or branches under multiple paths.
54 The option --stdlayout is
55 a shorthand way of setting trunk,tags,branches as the relative paths,
56 which is the Subversion default. If any of the other options are given
57 as well, they take precedence.
59 Set the 'noMetadata' option in the [svn-remote] config.
60 This option is not recommended, please read the 'svn.noMetadata'
61 section of this manpage before using this option.
63 Set the 'useSvmProps' option in the [svn-remote] config.
65 Set the 'useSvnsyncProps' option in the [svn-remote] config.
66 --rewrite-root=<URL>;;
67 Set the 'rewriteRoot' option in the [svn-remote] config.
68 --rewrite-uuid=<UUID>;;
69 Set the 'rewriteUUID' option in the [svn-remote] config.
71 For transports that SVN handles authentication for (http,
72 https, and plain svn), specify the username. For other
73 transports (eg svn+ssh://), you must include the username in
74 the URL, eg svn+ssh://foo@svn.bar.com/project
76 This allows one to specify a prefix which is prepended
77 to the names of remotes if trunk/branches/tags are
78 specified. The prefix does not automatically include a
79 trailing slash, so be sure you include one in the
80 argument if that is what you want. If --branches/-b is
81 specified, the prefix must include a trailing slash.
82 Setting a prefix is useful if you wish to track multiple
83 projects that share a common repository.
84 --ignore-paths=<regex>;;
85 When passed to 'init' or 'clone' this regular expression will
86 be preserved as a config key. See 'fetch' for a description
88 --include-paths=<regex>;;
89 When passed to 'init' or 'clone' this regular expression will
90 be preserved as a config key. See 'fetch' for a description
93 When tracking multiple directories (using --stdlayout,
94 --branches, or --tags options), git svn will attempt to connect
95 to the root (or highest allowed level) of the Subversion
96 repository. This default allows better tracking of history if
97 entire projects are moved within a repository, but may cause
98 issues on repositories where read access restrictions are in
99 place. Passing '--no-minimize-url' will allow git svn to
100 accept URLs as-is without attempting to connect to a higher
101 level directory. This option is off by default when only
102 one URL/branch is tracked (it would do little good).
105 Fetch unfetched revisions from the Subversion remote we are
106 tracking. The name of the [svn-remote "..."] section in the
107 .git/config file may be specified as an optional command-line
111 Store Git commit times in the local timezone instead of UTC. This
112 makes 'git log' (even without --date=local) show the same times
113 that `svn log` would in the local timezone.
115 This doesn't interfere with interoperating with the Subversion
116 repository you cloned from, but if you wish for your local Git
117 repository to be able to interoperate with someone else's local Git
118 repository, either don't use this option or you should both use it in
119 the same local timezone.
122 Fetch only from the SVN parent of the current HEAD.
124 --ignore-paths=<regex>;;
125 This allows one to specify a Perl regular expression that will
126 cause skipping of all matching paths from checkout from SVN.
127 The '--ignore-paths' option should match for every 'fetch'
128 (including automatic fetches due to 'clone', 'dcommit',
129 'rebase', etc) on a given repository.
132 config key: svn-remote.<name>.ignore-paths
134 If the ignore-paths config key is set and the command line option is
135 also given, both regular expressions will be used.
140 Skip "doc*" directory for every fetch;;
142 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
143 --ignore-paths="^doc"
144 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
146 Skip "branches" and "tags" of first level directories;;
148 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
149 --ignore-paths="^[^/]+/(?:branches|tags)"
150 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
153 --include-paths=<regex>;;
154 This allows one to specify a Perl regular expression that will
155 cause the inclusion of only matching paths from checkout from SVN.
156 The '--include-paths' option should match for every 'fetch'
157 (including automatic fetches due to 'clone', 'dcommit',
158 'rebase', etc) on a given repository. '--ignore-paths' takes
159 precedence over '--include-paths'.
161 --log-window-size=<n>;;
162 Fetch <n> log entries per request when scanning Subversion history.
163 The default is 100. For very large Subversion repositories, larger
164 values may be needed for 'clone'/'fetch' to complete in reasonable
165 time. But overly large values may lead to higher memory usage and
169 Runs 'init' and 'fetch'. It will automatically create a
170 directory based on the basename of the URL passed to it;
171 or if a second argument is passed; it will create a directory
172 and work within that. It accepts all arguments that the
173 'init' and 'fetch' commands accept; with the exception of
174 '--fetch-all' and '--parent'. After a repository is cloned,
175 the 'fetch' command will be able to update revisions without
176 affecting the working tree; and the 'rebase' command will be
177 able to update the working tree with the latest changes.
179 --preserve-empty-dirs;;
180 Create a placeholder file in the local Git repository for each
181 empty directory fetched from Subversion. This includes directories
182 that become empty by removing all entries in the Subversion
183 repository (but not the directory itself). The placeholder files
184 are also tracked and removed when no longer necessary.
186 --placeholder-filename=<filename>;;
187 Set the name of placeholder files created by --preserve-empty-dirs.
188 Default: ".gitignore"
191 This fetches revisions from the SVN parent of the current HEAD
192 and rebases the current (uncommitted to SVN) work against it.
194 This works similarly to `svn update` or 'git pull' except that
195 it preserves linear history with 'git rebase' instead of
196 'git merge' for ease of dcommitting with 'git svn'.
198 This accepts all options that 'git svn fetch' and 'git rebase'
199 accept. However, '--fetch-all' only fetches from the current
200 [svn-remote], and not all [svn-remote] definitions.
202 Like 'git rebase'; this requires that the working tree be clean
203 and have no uncommitted changes.
207 Do not fetch remotely; only run 'git rebase' against the
208 last fetched commit from the upstream SVN.
211 Commit each diff from the current branch directly to the SVN
212 repository, and then rebase or reset (depending on whether or
213 not there is a diff between SVN and head). This will create
214 a revision in SVN for each commit in Git.
216 When an optional Git branch name (or a Git commit object name)
217 is specified as an argument, the subcommand works on the specified
218 branch, not on the current branch.
220 Use of 'dcommit' is preferred to 'set-tree' (below).
223 After committing, do not rebase or reset.
225 Commit to this SVN URL (the full path). This is intended to
226 allow existing 'git svn' repositories created with one transport
227 method (e.g. `svn://` or `http://` for anonymous read) to be
228 reused if a user is later given access to an alternate transport
229 method (e.g. `svn+ssh://` or `https://`) for commit.
232 config key: svn-remote.<name>.commiturl
233 config key: svn.commiturl (overwrites all svn-remote.<name>.commiturl options)
235 Using this option for any other purpose (don't ask) is very strongly
238 --mergeinfo=<mergeinfo>;;
239 Add the given merge information during the dcommit
240 (e.g. `--mergeinfo="/branches/foo:1-10"`). All svn server versions can
241 store this information (as a property), and svn clients starting from
242 version 1.5 can make use of it. To specify merge information from multiple
243 branches, use a single space character between the branches
244 (`--mergeinfo="/branches/foo:1-10 /branches/bar:3,5-6,8"`)
247 config key: svn.pushmergeinfo
249 This option will cause git-svn to attempt to automatically populate the
250 svn:mergeinfo property in the SVN repository when possible. Currently, this can
251 only be done when dcommitting non-fast-forward merges where all parents but the
252 first have already been pushed into SVN.
255 Ask the user to confirm that a patch set should actually be sent to SVN.
256 For each patch, one may answer "yes" (accept this patch), "no" (discard this
257 patch), "all" (accept all patches), or "quit".
259 'git svn dcommit' returns immediately if answer if "no" or "quit", without
260 committing anything to SVN.
263 Create a branch in the SVN repository.
267 Allows to specify the commit message.
271 Create a tag by using the tags_subdir instead of the branches_subdir
272 specified during git svn init.
275 --destination=<path>;;
277 If more than one --branches (or --tags) option was given to the 'init'
278 or 'clone' command, you must provide the location of the branch (or
279 tag) you wish to create in the SVN repository. <path> specifies which
280 path to use to create the branch or tag and should match the pattern
281 on the left-hand side of one of the configured branches or tags
282 refspecs. You can see these refspecs with the commands
284 git config --get-all svn-remote.<name>.branches
285 git config --get-all svn-remote.<name>.tags
287 where <name> is the name of the SVN repository as specified by the -R option to
288 'init' (or "svn" by default).
291 Specify the SVN username to perform the commit as. This option overrides
292 the 'username' configuration property.
295 Use the specified URL to connect to the destination Subversion
296 repository. This is useful in cases where the source SVN
297 repository is read-only. This option overrides configuration
298 property 'commiturl'.
300 git config --get-all svn-remote.<name>.commiturl
304 Create a tag in the SVN repository. This is a shorthand for
308 This should make it easy to look up svn log messages when svn
309 users refer to -r/--revision numbers.
311 The following features from `svn log' are supported:
315 --revision=<n>[:<n>];;
316 is supported, non-numeric args are not:
317 HEAD, NEXT, BASE, PREV, etc ...
320 it's not completely compatible with the --verbose
321 output in svn log, but reasonably close.
323 is NOT the same as --max-count, doesn't count
324 merged/excluded commits
333 shows the Git commit sha1, as well
335 our version of --pretty=oneline
338 NOTE: SVN itself only stores times in UTC and nothing else. The regular svn
339 client converts the UTC time to the local time (or based on the TZ=
340 environment). This command has the same behaviour.
342 Any other arguments are passed directly to 'git log'
345 Show what revision and author last modified each line of a file. The
346 output of this mode is format-compatible with the output of
347 `svn blame' by default. Like the SVN blame command,
348 local uncommitted changes in the working tree are ignored;
349 the version of the file in the HEAD revision is annotated. Unknown
350 arguments are passed directly to 'git blame'.
353 Produce output in the same format as 'git blame', but with
354 SVN revision numbers instead of Git commit hashes. In this mode,
355 changes that haven't been committed to SVN (including local
356 working-copy edits) are shown as revision 0.
359 When given an SVN revision number of the form 'rN', returns the
360 corresponding Git commit hash (this can optionally be followed by a
361 tree-ish to specify which branch should be searched). When given a
362 tree-ish, returns the corresponding SVN revision number.
365 Don't require an exact match if given an SVN revision, instead find
366 the commit corresponding to the state of the SVN repository (on the
367 current branch) at the specified revision.
370 Don't require an exact match if given an SVN revision; if there is
371 not an exact match return the closest match searching forward in the
375 You should consider using 'dcommit' instead of this command.
376 Commit specified commit or tree objects to SVN. This relies on
377 your imported fetch data being up-to-date. This makes
378 absolutely no attempts to do patching when committing to SVN, it
379 simply overwrites files with those specified in the tree or
380 commit. All merging is assumed to have taken place
381 independently of 'git svn' functions.
384 Recursively finds the svn:ignore property on directories and
385 creates matching .gitignore files. The resulting files are staged to
386 be committed, but are not committed. Use -r/--revision to refer to a
390 Recursively finds and lists the svn:ignore property on
391 directories. The output is suitable for appending to
392 the $GIT_DIR/info/exclude file.
395 Attempts to recreate empty directories that core Git cannot track
396 based on information in $GIT_DIR/svn/<refname>/unhandled.log files.
397 Empty directories are automatically recreated when using
398 "git svn clone" and "git svn rebase", so "mkdirs" is intended
399 for use after commands like "git checkout" or "git reset".
400 (See the svn-remote.<name>.automkdirs config file option for
404 Commits the diff of two tree-ish arguments from the
405 command-line. This command does not rely on being inside an `git svn
406 init`-ed repository. This command takes three arguments, (a) the
407 original tree to diff against, (b) the new tree result, (c) the
408 URL of the target Subversion repository. The final argument
409 (URL) may be omitted if you are working from a 'git svn'-aware
410 repository (that has been `init`-ed with 'git svn').
411 The -r<revision> option is required for this.
414 Shows information about a file or directory similar to what
415 `svn info' provides. Does not currently support a -r/--revision
416 argument. Use the --url option to output only the value of the
420 Lists the properties stored in the Subversion repository about a
421 given file or directory. Use -r/--revision to refer to a specific
425 Gets the Subversion property given as the first argument, for a
426 file. A specific revision can be specified with -r/--revision.
429 Shows the Subversion externals. Use -r/--revision to specify a
433 Compress $GIT_DIR/svn/<refname>/unhandled.log files in .git/svn
434 and remove $GIT_DIR/svn/<refname>index files in .git/svn.
437 Undoes the effects of 'fetch' back to the specified revision.
438 This allows you to re-'fetch' an SVN revision. Normally the
439 contents of an SVN revision should never change and 'reset'
440 should not be necessary. However, if SVN permissions change,
441 or if you alter your --ignore-paths option, a 'fetch' may fail
442 with "not found in commit" (file not previously visible) or
443 "checksum mismatch" (missed a modification). If the problem
444 file cannot be ignored forever (with --ignore-paths) the only
445 way to repair the repo is to use 'reset'.
447 Only the rev_map and refs/remotes/git-svn are changed. Follow 'reset'
448 with a 'fetch' and then 'git reset' or 'git rebase' to move local
449 branches onto the new tree.
453 Specify the most recent revision to keep. All later revisions
457 Discard the specified revision as well, keeping the nearest
460 Assume you have local changes in "master", but you need to refetch "r2".
463 r1---r2---r3 remotes/git-svn
468 Fix the ignore-paths or SVN permissions problem that caused "r2" to
469 be incomplete in the first place. Then:
476 r1---r2'--r3' remotes/git-svn
478 r2---r3---A---B master
481 Then fixup "master" with 'git rebase'.
482 Do NOT use 'git merge' or your history will not be compatible with a
486 git rebase --onto remotes/git-svn A^ master
489 r1---r2'--r3' remotes/git-svn
497 --shared[=(false|true|umask|group|all|world|everybody)]::
498 --template=<template_directory>::
499 Only used with the 'init' command.
500 These are passed directly to 'git init'.
504 Used with the 'fetch' command.
506 This allows revision ranges for partial/cauterized history
507 to be supported. $NUMBER, $NUMBER1:$NUMBER2 (numeric ranges),
508 $NUMBER:HEAD, and BASE:$NUMBER are all supported.
510 This can allow you to make partial mirrors when running fetch;
511 but is generally not recommended because history will be skipped
516 Only used with the 'set-tree' command.
518 Read a list of commits from stdin and commit them in reverse
519 order. Only the leading sha1 is read from each line, so
520 'git rev-list --pretty=oneline' output can be used.
523 Only used with the 'dcommit', 'set-tree' and 'commit-diff' commands.
525 Remove directories from the SVN tree if there are no files left
526 behind. SVN can version empty directories, and they are not
527 removed by default if there are no files left in them. Git
528 cannot version empty directories. Enabling this flag will make
529 the commit to SVN act like Git.
532 config key: svn.rmdir
536 Only used with the 'dcommit', 'set-tree' and 'commit-diff' commands.
538 Edit the commit message before committing to SVN. This is off by
539 default for objects that are commits, and forced on when committing
546 --find-copies-harder::
547 Only used with the 'dcommit', 'set-tree' and 'commit-diff' commands.
549 They are both passed directly to 'git diff-tree'; see
550 linkgit:git-diff-tree[1] for more information.
554 config key: svn.findcopiesharder
557 --authors-file=<filename>::
558 Syntax is compatible with the file used by 'git cvsimport':
560 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
561 loginname = Joe User <user@example.com>
562 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
564 If this option is specified and 'git svn' encounters an SVN
565 committer name that does not exist in the authors-file, 'git svn'
566 will abort operation. The user will then have to add the
567 appropriate entry. Re-running the previous 'git svn' command
568 after the authors-file is modified should continue operation.
571 config key: svn.authorsfile
573 --authors-prog=<filename>::
574 If this option is specified, for each SVN committer name that
575 does not exist in the authors file, the given file is executed
576 with the committer name as the first argument. The program is
577 expected to return a single line of the form "Name <email>",
578 which will be treated as if included in the authors file.
582 Make 'git svn' less verbose. Specify a second time to make it
586 --repack-flags=<flags>::
587 These should help keep disk usage sane for large fetches with
590 --repack takes an optional argument for the number of revisions
591 to fetch before repacking. This defaults to repacking every
592 1000 commits fetched if no argument is specified.
594 --repack-flags are passed directly to 'git repack'.
597 config key: svn.repack
598 config key: svn.repackflags
603 --strategy=<strategy>::
606 These are only used with the 'dcommit' and 'rebase' commands.
608 Passed directly to 'git rebase' when using 'dcommit' if a
609 'git reset' cannot be used (see 'dcommit').
613 This can be used with the 'dcommit', 'rebase', 'branch' and
616 For 'dcommit', print out the series of Git arguments that would show
617 which diffs would be committed to SVN.
619 For 'rebase', display the local branch associated with the upstream svn
620 repository associated with the current branch and the URL of svn
621 repository that will be fetched from.
623 For 'branch' and 'tag', display the urls that will be used for copying when
624 creating the branch or tag.
627 When retrieving svn commits into Git (as part of 'fetch', 'rebase', or
628 'dcommit' operations), look for the first `From:` or `Signed-off-by:` line
629 in the log message and use that as the author string.
631 When committing to svn from Git (as part of 'commit-diff', 'set-tree' or 'dcommit'
632 operations), if the existing log message doesn't already have a
633 `From:` or `Signed-off-by:` line, append a `From:` line based on the
634 Git commit's author string. If you use this, then `--use-log-author`
635 will retrieve a valid author string for all commits.
643 This sets GIT_SVN_ID (instead of using the environment). This
644 allows the user to override the default refname to fetch from
645 when tracking a single URL. The 'log' and 'dcommit' commands
646 no longer require this switch as an argument.
649 --svn-remote <remote name>::
650 Specify the [svn-remote "<remote name>"] section to use,
651 this allows SVN multiple repositories to be tracked.
655 This option is only relevant if we are tracking branches (using
656 one of the repository layout options --trunk, --tags,
657 --branches, --stdlayout). For each tracked branch, try to find
658 out where its revision was copied from, and set
659 a suitable parent in the first Git commit for the branch.
660 This is especially helpful when we're tracking a directory
661 that has been moved around within the repository. If this
662 feature is disabled, the branches created by 'git svn' will all
663 be linear and not share any history, meaning that there will be
664 no information on where branches were branched off or merged.
665 However, following long/convoluted histories can take a long
666 time, so disabling this feature may speed up the cloning
667 process. This feature is enabled by default, use
668 --no-follow-parent to disable it.
671 config key: svn.followparent
673 CONFIG FILE-ONLY OPTIONS
674 ------------------------
677 svn-remote.<name>.noMetadata::
678 This gets rid of the 'git-svn-id:' lines at the end of every commit.
680 This option can only be used for one-shot imports as 'git svn'
681 will not be able to fetch again without metadata. Additionally,
682 if you lose your .git/svn/**/.rev_map.* files, 'git svn' will not
683 be able to rebuild them.
685 The 'git svn log' command will not work on repositories using
686 this, either. Using this conflicts with the 'useSvmProps'
687 option for (hopefully) obvious reasons.
689 This option is NOT recommended as it makes it difficult to track down
690 old references to SVN revision numbers in existing documentation, bug
691 reports and archives. If you plan to eventually migrate from SVN to Git
692 and are certain about dropping SVN history, consider
693 linkgit:git-filter-branch[1] instead. filter-branch also allows
694 reformatting of metadata for ease-of-reading and rewriting authorship
695 info for non-"svn.authorsFile" users.
698 svn-remote.<name>.useSvmProps::
699 This allows 'git svn' to re-map repository URLs and UUIDs from
700 mirrors created using SVN::Mirror (or svk) for metadata.
702 If an SVN revision has a property, "svm:headrev", it is likely
703 that the revision was created by SVN::Mirror (also used by SVK).
704 The property contains a repository UUID and a revision. We want
705 to make it look like we are mirroring the original URL, so
706 introduce a helper function that returns the original identity
707 URL and UUID, and use it when generating metadata in commit
710 svn.useSvnsyncProps::
711 svn-remote.<name>.useSvnsyncprops::
712 Similar to the useSvmProps option; this is for users
713 of the svnsync(1) command distributed with SVN 1.4.x and
716 svn-remote.<name>.rewriteRoot::
717 This allows users to create repositories from alternate
718 URLs. For example, an administrator could run 'git svn' on the
719 server locally (accessing via file://) but wish to distribute
720 the repository with a public http:// or svn:// URL in the
721 metadata so users of it will see the public URL.
723 svn-remote.<name>.rewriteUUID::
724 Similar to the useSvmProps option; this is for users who need
725 to remap the UUID manually. This may be useful in situations
726 where the original UUID is not available via either useSvmProps
729 svn-remote.<name>.pushurl::
731 Similar to Git's 'remote.<name>.pushurl', this key is designed
732 to be used in cases where 'url' points to an SVN repository
733 via a read-only transport, to provide an alternate read/write
734 transport. It is assumed that both keys point to the same
735 repository. Unlike 'commiturl', 'pushurl' is a base path. If
736 either 'commiturl' or 'pushurl' could be used, 'commiturl'
739 svn.brokenSymlinkWorkaround::
740 This disables potentially expensive checks to workaround
741 broken symlinks checked into SVN by broken clients. Set this
742 option to "false" if you track a SVN repository with many
743 empty blobs that are not symlinks. This option may be changed
744 while 'git svn' is running and take effect on the next
745 revision fetched. If unset, 'git svn' assumes this option to
748 svn.pathnameencoding::
749 This instructs git svn to recode pathnames to a given encoding.
750 It can be used by windows users and by those who work in non-utf8
751 locales to avoid corrupted file names with non-ASCII characters.
752 Valid encodings are the ones supported by Perl's Encode module.
754 svn-remote.<name>.automkdirs::
755 Normally, the "git svn clone" and "git svn rebase" commands
756 attempt to recreate empty directories that are in the
757 Subversion repository. If this option is set to "false", then
758 empty directories will only be created if the "git svn mkdirs"
759 command is run explicitly. If unset, 'git svn' assumes this
762 Since the noMetadata, rewriteRoot, rewriteUUID, useSvnsyncProps and useSvmProps
763 options all affect the metadata generated and used by 'git svn'; they
764 *must* be set in the configuration file before any history is imported
765 and these settings should never be changed once they are set.
767 Additionally, only one of these options can be used per svn-remote
768 section because they affect the 'git-svn-id:' metadata line, except
769 for rewriteRoot and rewriteUUID which can be used together.
775 Tracking and contributing to the trunk of a Subversion-managed project
776 (ignoring tags and branches):
778 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
779 # Clone a repo (like git clone):
780 git svn clone http://svn.example.com/project/trunk
781 # Enter the newly cloned directory:
783 # You should be on master branch, double-check with 'git branch'
785 # Do some work and commit locally to Git:
787 # Something is committed to SVN, rebase your local changes against the
788 # latest changes in SVN:
790 # Now commit your changes (that were committed previously using Git) to SVN,
791 # as well as automatically updating your working HEAD:
793 # Append svn:ignore settings to the default Git exclude file:
794 git svn show-ignore >> .git/info/exclude
795 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
797 Tracking and contributing to an entire Subversion-managed project
798 (complete with a trunk, tags and branches):
800 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
801 # Clone a repo with standard SVN directory layout (like git clone):
802 git svn clone http://svn.example.com/project --stdlayout
803 # Or, if the repo uses a non-standard directory layout:
804 git svn clone http://svn.example.com/project -T tr -b branch -t tag
805 # View all branches and tags you have cloned:
807 # Create a new branch in SVN
809 # Reset your master to trunk (or any other branch, replacing 'trunk'
810 # with the appropriate name):
811 git reset --hard remotes/trunk
812 # You may only dcommit to one branch/tag/trunk at a time. The usage
813 # of dcommit/rebase/show-ignore should be the same as above.
814 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
816 The initial 'git svn clone' can be quite time-consuming
817 (especially for large Subversion repositories). If multiple
818 people (or one person with multiple machines) want to use
819 'git svn' to interact with the same Subversion repository, you can
820 do the initial 'git svn clone' to a repository on a server and
821 have each person clone that repository with 'git clone':
823 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
824 # Do the initial import on a server
825 ssh server "cd /pub && git svn clone http://svn.example.com/project
826 # Clone locally - make sure the refs/remotes/ space matches the server
830 git remote add origin server:/pub/project
831 git config --replace-all remote.origin.fetch '+refs/remotes/*:refs/remotes/*'
833 # Prevent fetch/pull from remote Git server in the future,
834 # we only want to use git svn for future updates
835 git config --remove-section remote.origin
836 # Create a local branch from one of the branches just fetched
837 git checkout -b master FETCH_HEAD
838 # Initialize 'git svn' locally (be sure to use the same URL and -T/-b/-t options as were used on server)
839 git svn init http://svn.example.com/project
840 # Pull the latest changes from Subversion
842 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
844 REBASE VS. PULL/MERGE
845 ---------------------
846 Prefer to use 'git svn rebase' or 'git rebase', rather than
847 'git pull' or 'git merge' to synchronize unintegrated commits with a 'git svn'
848 branch. Doing so will keep the history of unintegrated commits linear with
849 respect to the upstream SVN repository and allow the use of the preferred
850 'git svn dcommit' subcommand to push unintegrated commits back into SVN.
852 Originally, 'git svn' recommended that developers pulled or merged from
853 the 'git svn' branch. This was because the author favored
854 `git svn set-tree B` to commit a single head rather than the
855 `git svn set-tree A..B` notation to commit multiple commits. Use of
856 'git pull' or 'git merge' with `git svn set-tree A..B` will cause non-linear
857 history to be flattened when committing into SVN and this can lead to merge
858 commits unexpectedly reversing previous commits in SVN.
862 While 'git svn' can track
863 copy history (including branches and tags) for repositories adopting a
864 standard layout, it cannot yet represent merge history that happened
865 inside git back upstream to SVN users. Therefore it is advised that
866 users keep history as linear as possible inside Git to ease
867 compatibility with SVN (see the CAVEATS section below).
869 HANDLING OF SVN BRANCHES
870 ------------------------
871 If 'git svn' is configured to fetch branches (and --follow-branches
872 is in effect), it sometimes creates multiple Git branches for one
873 SVN branch, where the additional branches have names of the form
874 'branchname@nnn' (with nnn an SVN revision number). These additional
875 branches are created if 'git svn' cannot find a parent commit for the
876 first commit in an SVN branch, to connect the branch to the history of
879 Normally, the first commit in an SVN branch consists
880 of a copy operation. 'git svn' will read this commit to get the SVN
881 revision the branch was created from. It will then try to find the
882 Git commit that corresponds to this SVN revision, and use that as the
883 parent of the branch. However, it is possible that there is no suitable
884 Git commit to serve as parent. This will happen, among other reasons,
885 if the SVN branch is a copy of a revision that was not fetched by 'git
886 svn' (e.g. because it is an old revision that was skipped with
887 '--revision'), or if in SVN a directory was copied that is not tracked
888 by 'git svn' (such as a branch that is not tracked at all, or a
889 subdirectory of a tracked branch). In these cases, 'git svn' will still
890 create a Git branch, but instead of using an existing Git commit as the
891 parent of the branch, it will read the SVN history of the directory the
892 branch was copied from and create appropriate Git commits. This is
893 indicated by the message "Initializing parent: <branchname>".
895 Additionally, it will create a special branch named
896 '<branchname>@<SVN-Revision>', where <SVN-Revision> is the SVN revision
897 number the branch was copied from. This branch will point to the newly
898 created parent commit of the branch. If in SVN the branch was deleted
899 and later recreated from a different version, there will be multiple
900 such branches with an '@'.
902 Note that this may mean that multiple Git commits are created for a
905 An example: in an SVN repository with a standard
906 trunk/tags/branches layout, a directory trunk/sub is created in r.100.
907 In r.200, trunk/sub is branched by copying it to branches/. 'git svn
908 clone -s' will then create a branch 'sub'. It will also create new Git
909 commits for r.100 through r.199 and use these as the history of branch
910 'sub'. Thus there will be two Git commits for each revision from r.100
911 to r.199 (one containing trunk/, one containing trunk/sub/). Finally,
912 it will create a branch 'sub@200' pointing to the new parent commit of
913 branch 'sub' (i.e. the commit for r.200 and trunk/sub/).
918 For the sake of simplicity and interoperating with Subversion,
919 it is recommended that all 'git svn' users clone, fetch and dcommit
920 directly from the SVN server, and avoid all 'git clone'/'pull'/'merge'/'push'
921 operations between Git repositories and branches. The recommended
922 method of exchanging code between Git branches and users is
923 'git format-patch' and 'git am', or just 'dcommit'ing to the SVN repository.
925 Running 'git merge' or 'git pull' is NOT recommended on a branch you
926 plan to 'dcommit' from because Subversion users cannot see any
927 merges you've made. Furthermore, if you merge or pull from a Git branch
928 that is a mirror of an SVN branch, 'dcommit' may commit to the wrong
931 If you do merge, note the following rule: 'git svn dcommit' will
932 attempt to commit on top of the SVN commit named in
933 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
934 git log --grep=^git-svn-id: --first-parent -1
935 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
936 You 'must' therefore ensure that the most recent commit of the branch
937 you want to dcommit to is the 'first' parent of the merge. Chaos will
938 ensue otherwise, especially if the first parent is an older commit on
941 'git clone' does not clone branches under the refs/remotes/ hierarchy or
942 any 'git svn' metadata, or config. So repositories created and managed with
943 using 'git svn' should use 'rsync' for cloning, if cloning is to be done
946 Since 'dcommit' uses rebase internally, any Git branches you 'git push' to
947 before 'dcommit' on will require forcing an overwrite of the existing ref
948 on the remote repository. This is generally considered bad practice,
949 see the linkgit:git-push[1] documentation for details.
951 Do not use the --amend option of linkgit:git-commit[1] on a change you've
952 already dcommitted. It is considered bad practice to --amend commits
953 you've already pushed to a remote repository for other users, and
954 dcommit with SVN is analogous to that.
956 When cloning an SVN repository, if none of the options for describing
957 the repository layout is used (--trunk, --tags, --branches,
958 --stdlayout), 'git svn clone' will create a Git repository with
959 completely linear history, where branches and tags appear as separate
960 directories in the working copy. While this is the easiest way to get a
961 copy of a complete repository, for projects with many branches it will
962 lead to a working copy many times larger than just the trunk. Thus for
963 projects using the standard directory structure (trunk/branches/tags),
964 it is recommended to clone with option '--stdlayout'. If the project
965 uses a non-standard structure, and/or if branches and tags are not
966 required, it is easiest to only clone one directory (typically trunk),
967 without giving any repository layout options. If the full history with
968 branches and tags is required, the options '--trunk' / '--branches' /
969 '--tags' must be used.
971 When using multiple --branches or --tags, 'git svn' does not automatically
972 handle name collisions (for example, if two branches from different paths have
973 the same name, or if a branch and a tag have the same name). In these cases,
974 use 'init' to set up your Git repository then, before your first 'fetch', edit
975 the .git/config file so that the branches and tags are associated with
976 different name spaces. For example:
978 branches = stable/*:refs/remotes/svn/stable/*
979 branches = debug/*:refs/remotes/svn/debug/*
984 We ignore all SVN properties except svn:executable. Any unhandled
985 properties are logged to $GIT_DIR/svn/<refname>/unhandled.log
987 Renamed and copied directories are not detected by Git and hence not
988 tracked when committing to SVN. I do not plan on adding support for
989 this as it's quite difficult and time-consuming to get working for all
990 the possible corner cases (Git doesn't do it, either). Committing
991 renamed and copied files is fully supported if they're similar enough
992 for Git to detect them.
994 In SVN, it is possible (though discouraged) to commit changes to a tag
995 (because a tag is just a directory copy, thus technically the same as a
996 branch). When cloning an SVN repository, 'git svn' cannot know if such a
997 commit to a tag will happen in the future. Thus it acts conservatively
998 and imports all SVN tags as branches, prefixing the tag name with 'tags/'.
1003 'git svn' stores [svn-remote] configuration information in the
1004 repository .git/config file. It is similar the core Git
1005 [remote] sections except 'fetch' keys do not accept glob
1006 arguments; but they are instead handled by the 'branches'
1007 and 'tags' keys. Since some SVN repositories are oddly
1008 configured with multiple projects glob expansions such those
1009 listed below are allowed:
1011 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
1012 [svn-remote "project-a"]
1013 url = http://server.org/svn
1014 fetch = trunk/project-a:refs/remotes/project-a/trunk
1015 branches = branches/*/project-a:refs/remotes/project-a/branches/*
1016 tags = tags/*/project-a:refs/remotes/project-a/tags/*
1017 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
1019 Keep in mind that the '\*' (asterisk) wildcard of the local ref
1020 (right of the ':') *must* be the farthest right path component;
1021 however the remote wildcard may be anywhere as long as it's an
1022 independent path component (surrounded by '/' or EOL). This
1023 type of configuration is not automatically created by 'init' and
1024 should be manually entered with a text-editor or using 'git config'.
1026 It is also possible to fetch a subset of branches or tags by using a
1027 comma-separated list of names within braces. For example:
1029 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
1030 [svn-remote "huge-project"]
1031 url = http://server.org/svn
1032 fetch = trunk/src:refs/remotes/trunk
1033 branches = branches/{red,green}/src:refs/remotes/branches/*
1034 tags = tags/{1.0,2.0}/src:refs/remotes/tags/*
1035 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
1037 Multiple fetch, branches, and tags keys are supported:
1039 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
1040 [svn-remote "messy-repo"]
1041 url = http://server.org/svn
1042 fetch = trunk/project-a:refs/remotes/project-a/trunk
1043 fetch = branches/demos/june-project-a-demo:refs/remotes/project-a/demos/june-demo
1044 branches = branches/server/*:refs/remotes/project-a/branches/*
1045 branches = branches/demos/2011/*:refs/remotes/project-a/2011-demos/*
1046 tags = tags/server/*:refs/remotes/project-a/tags/*
1047 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
1049 Creating a branch in such a configuration requires disambiguating which
1050 location to use using the -d or --destination flag:
1052 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
1053 $ git svn branch -d branches/server release-2-3-0
1054 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
1056 Note that git-svn keeps track of the highest revision in which a branch
1057 or tag has appeared. If the subset of branches or tags is changed after
1058 fetching, then .git/svn/.metadata must be manually edited to remove (or
1059 reset) branches-maxRev and/or tags-maxRev as appropriate.
1063 linkgit:git-rebase[1]
1067 Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite