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 is "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 parent folders. This parameter is equivalent to the parameter
305 --parents on svn cp commands and is useful for non-standard repository
309 Create a tag in the SVN repository. This is a shorthand for
313 This should make it easy to look up svn log messages when svn
314 users refer to -r/--revision numbers.
316 The following features from `svn log' are supported:
320 --revision=<n>[:<n>];;
321 is supported, non-numeric args are not:
322 HEAD, NEXT, BASE, PREV, etc ...
325 it's not completely compatible with the --verbose
326 output in svn log, but reasonably close.
328 is NOT the same as --max-count, doesn't count
329 merged/excluded commits
338 shows the Git commit sha1, as well
340 our version of --pretty=oneline
343 NOTE: SVN itself only stores times in UTC and nothing else. The regular svn
344 client converts the UTC time to the local time (or based on the TZ=
345 environment). This command has the same behaviour.
347 Any other arguments are passed directly to 'git log'
350 Show what revision and author last modified each line of a file. The
351 output of this mode is format-compatible with the output of
352 `svn blame' by default. Like the SVN blame command,
353 local uncommitted changes in the working tree are ignored;
354 the version of the file in the HEAD revision is annotated. Unknown
355 arguments are passed directly to 'git blame'.
358 Produce output in the same format as 'git blame', but with
359 SVN revision numbers instead of Git commit hashes. In this mode,
360 changes that haven't been committed to SVN (including local
361 working-copy edits) are shown as revision 0.
364 When given an SVN revision number of the form 'rN', returns the
365 corresponding Git commit hash (this can optionally be followed by a
366 tree-ish to specify which branch should be searched). When given a
367 tree-ish, returns the corresponding SVN revision number.
370 Don't require an exact match if given an SVN revision, instead find
371 the commit corresponding to the state of the SVN repository (on the
372 current branch) at the specified revision.
375 Don't require an exact match if given an SVN revision; if there is
376 not an exact match return the closest match searching forward in the
380 You should consider using 'dcommit' instead of this command.
381 Commit specified commit or tree objects to SVN. This relies on
382 your imported fetch data being up-to-date. This makes
383 absolutely no attempts to do patching when committing to SVN, it
384 simply overwrites files with those specified in the tree or
385 commit. All merging is assumed to have taken place
386 independently of 'git svn' functions.
389 Recursively finds the svn:ignore property on directories and
390 creates matching .gitignore files. The resulting files are staged to
391 be committed, but are not committed. Use -r/--revision to refer to a
395 Recursively finds and lists the svn:ignore property on
396 directories. The output is suitable for appending to
397 the $GIT_DIR/info/exclude file.
400 Attempts to recreate empty directories that core Git cannot track
401 based on information in $GIT_DIR/svn/<refname>/unhandled.log files.
402 Empty directories are automatically recreated when using
403 "git svn clone" and "git svn rebase", so "mkdirs" is intended
404 for use after commands like "git checkout" or "git reset".
405 (See the svn-remote.<name>.automkdirs config file option for
409 Commits the diff of two tree-ish arguments from the
410 command-line. This command does not rely on being inside an `git svn
411 init`-ed repository. This command takes three arguments, (a) the
412 original tree to diff against, (b) the new tree result, (c) the
413 URL of the target Subversion repository. The final argument
414 (URL) may be omitted if you are working from a 'git svn'-aware
415 repository (that has been `init`-ed with 'git svn').
416 The -r<revision> option is required for this.
419 Shows information about a file or directory similar to what
420 `svn info' provides. Does not currently support a -r/--revision
421 argument. Use the --url option to output only the value of the
425 Lists the properties stored in the Subversion repository about a
426 given file or directory. Use -r/--revision to refer to a specific
430 Gets the Subversion property given as the first argument, for a
431 file. A specific revision can be specified with -r/--revision.
434 Shows the Subversion externals. Use -r/--revision to specify a
438 Compress $GIT_DIR/svn/<refname>/unhandled.log files in .git/svn
439 and remove $GIT_DIR/svn/<refname>index files in .git/svn.
442 Undoes the effects of 'fetch' back to the specified revision.
443 This allows you to re-'fetch' an SVN revision. Normally the
444 contents of an SVN revision should never change and 'reset'
445 should not be necessary. However, if SVN permissions change,
446 or if you alter your --ignore-paths option, a 'fetch' may fail
447 with "not found in commit" (file not previously visible) or
448 "checksum mismatch" (missed a modification). If the problem
449 file cannot be ignored forever (with --ignore-paths) the only
450 way to repair the repo is to use 'reset'.
452 Only the rev_map and refs/remotes/git-svn are changed. Follow 'reset'
453 with a 'fetch' and then 'git reset' or 'git rebase' to move local
454 branches onto the new tree.
458 Specify the most recent revision to keep. All later revisions
462 Discard the specified revision as well, keeping the nearest
465 Assume you have local changes in "master", but you need to refetch "r2".
468 r1---r2---r3 remotes/git-svn
473 Fix the ignore-paths or SVN permissions problem that caused "r2" to
474 be incomplete in the first place. Then:
481 r1---r2'--r3' remotes/git-svn
483 r2---r3---A---B master
486 Then fixup "master" with 'git rebase'.
487 Do NOT use 'git merge' or your history will not be compatible with a
491 git rebase --onto remotes/git-svn A^ master
494 r1---r2'--r3' remotes/git-svn
502 --shared[=(false|true|umask|group|all|world|everybody)]::
503 --template=<template_directory>::
504 Only used with the 'init' command.
505 These are passed directly to 'git init'.
509 Used with the 'fetch' command.
511 This allows revision ranges for partial/cauterized history
512 to be supported. $NUMBER, $NUMBER1:$NUMBER2 (numeric ranges),
513 $NUMBER:HEAD, and BASE:$NUMBER are all supported.
515 This can allow you to make partial mirrors when running fetch;
516 but is generally not recommended because history will be skipped
521 Only used with the 'set-tree' command.
523 Read a list of commits from stdin and commit them in reverse
524 order. Only the leading sha1 is read from each line, so
525 'git rev-list --pretty=oneline' output can be used.
528 Only used with the 'dcommit', 'set-tree' and 'commit-diff' commands.
530 Remove directories from the SVN tree if there are no files left
531 behind. SVN can version empty directories, and they are not
532 removed by default if there are no files left in them. Git
533 cannot version empty directories. Enabling this flag will make
534 the commit to SVN act like Git.
537 config key: svn.rmdir
541 Only used with the 'dcommit', 'set-tree' and 'commit-diff' commands.
543 Edit the commit message before committing to SVN. This is off by
544 default for objects that are commits, and forced on when committing
551 --find-copies-harder::
552 Only used with the 'dcommit', 'set-tree' and 'commit-diff' commands.
554 They are both passed directly to 'git diff-tree'; see
555 linkgit:git-diff-tree[1] for more information.
559 config key: svn.findcopiesharder
562 --authors-file=<filename>::
563 Syntax is compatible with the file used by 'git cvsimport':
565 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
566 loginname = Joe User <user@example.com>
567 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
569 If this option is specified and 'git svn' encounters an SVN
570 committer name that does not exist in the authors-file, 'git svn'
571 will abort operation. The user will then have to add the
572 appropriate entry. Re-running the previous 'git svn' command
573 after the authors-file is modified should continue operation.
576 config key: svn.authorsfile
578 --authors-prog=<filename>::
579 If this option is specified, for each SVN committer name that
580 does not exist in the authors file, the given file is executed
581 with the committer name as the first argument. The program is
582 expected to return a single line of the form "Name <email>",
583 which will be treated as if included in the authors file.
587 Make 'git svn' less verbose. Specify a second time to make it
591 --repack-flags=<flags>::
592 These should help keep disk usage sane for large fetches with
595 --repack takes an optional argument for the number of revisions
596 to fetch before repacking. This defaults to repacking every
597 1000 commits fetched if no argument is specified.
599 --repack-flags are passed directly to 'git repack'.
602 config key: svn.repack
603 config key: svn.repackflags
608 --strategy=<strategy>::
611 These are only used with the 'dcommit' and 'rebase' commands.
613 Passed directly to 'git rebase' when using 'dcommit' if a
614 'git reset' cannot be used (see 'dcommit').
618 This can be used with the 'dcommit', 'rebase', 'branch' and
621 For 'dcommit', print out the series of Git arguments that would show
622 which diffs would be committed to SVN.
624 For 'rebase', display the local branch associated with the upstream svn
625 repository associated with the current branch and the URL of svn
626 repository that will be fetched from.
628 For 'branch' and 'tag', display the urls that will be used for copying when
629 creating the branch or tag.
632 When retrieving svn commits into Git (as part of 'fetch', 'rebase', or
633 'dcommit' operations), look for the first `From:` or `Signed-off-by:` line
634 in the log message and use that as the author string.
636 When committing to svn from Git (as part of 'commit-diff', 'set-tree' or 'dcommit'
637 operations), if the existing log message doesn't already have a
638 `From:` or `Signed-off-by:` line, append a `From:` line based on the
639 Git commit's author string. If you use this, then `--use-log-author`
640 will retrieve a valid author string for all commits.
648 This sets GIT_SVN_ID (instead of using the environment). This
649 allows the user to override the default refname to fetch from
650 when tracking a single URL. The 'log' and 'dcommit' commands
651 no longer require this switch as an argument.
654 --svn-remote <remote name>::
655 Specify the [svn-remote "<remote name>"] section to use,
656 this allows SVN multiple repositories to be tracked.
660 This option is only relevant if we are tracking branches (using
661 one of the repository layout options --trunk, --tags,
662 --branches, --stdlayout). For each tracked branch, try to find
663 out where its revision was copied from, and set
664 a suitable parent in the first Git commit for the branch.
665 This is especially helpful when we're tracking a directory
666 that has been moved around within the repository. If this
667 feature is disabled, the branches created by 'git svn' will all
668 be linear and not share any history, meaning that there will be
669 no information on where branches were branched off or merged.
670 However, following long/convoluted histories can take a long
671 time, so disabling this feature may speed up the cloning
672 process. This feature is enabled by default, use
673 --no-follow-parent to disable it.
676 config key: svn.followparent
678 CONFIG FILE-ONLY OPTIONS
679 ------------------------
682 svn-remote.<name>.noMetadata::
683 This gets rid of the 'git-svn-id:' lines at the end of every commit.
685 This option can only be used for one-shot imports as 'git svn'
686 will not be able to fetch again without metadata. Additionally,
687 if you lose your .git/svn/**/.rev_map.* files, 'git svn' will not
688 be able to rebuild them.
690 The 'git svn log' command will not work on repositories using
691 this, either. Using this conflicts with the 'useSvmProps'
692 option for (hopefully) obvious reasons.
694 This option is NOT recommended as it makes it difficult to track down
695 old references to SVN revision numbers in existing documentation, bug
696 reports and archives. If you plan to eventually migrate from SVN to Git
697 and are certain about dropping SVN history, consider
698 linkgit:git-filter-branch[1] instead. filter-branch also allows
699 reformatting of metadata for ease-of-reading and rewriting authorship
700 info for non-"svn.authorsFile" users.
703 svn-remote.<name>.useSvmProps::
704 This allows 'git svn' to re-map repository URLs and UUIDs from
705 mirrors created using SVN::Mirror (or svk) for metadata.
707 If an SVN revision has a property, "svm:headrev", it is likely
708 that the revision was created by SVN::Mirror (also used by SVK).
709 The property contains a repository UUID and a revision. We want
710 to make it look like we are mirroring the original URL, so
711 introduce a helper function that returns the original identity
712 URL and UUID, and use it when generating metadata in commit
715 svn.useSvnsyncProps::
716 svn-remote.<name>.useSvnsyncprops::
717 Similar to the useSvmProps option; this is for users
718 of the svnsync(1) command distributed with SVN 1.4.x and
721 svn-remote.<name>.rewriteRoot::
722 This allows users to create repositories from alternate
723 URLs. For example, an administrator could run 'git svn' on the
724 server locally (accessing via file://) but wish to distribute
725 the repository with a public http:// or svn:// URL in the
726 metadata so users of it will see the public URL.
728 svn-remote.<name>.rewriteUUID::
729 Similar to the useSvmProps option; this is for users who need
730 to remap the UUID manually. This may be useful in situations
731 where the original UUID is not available via either useSvmProps
734 svn-remote.<name>.pushurl::
736 Similar to Git's 'remote.<name>.pushurl', this key is designed
737 to be used in cases where 'url' points to an SVN repository
738 via a read-only transport, to provide an alternate read/write
739 transport. It is assumed that both keys point to the same
740 repository. Unlike 'commiturl', 'pushurl' is a base path. If
741 either 'commiturl' or 'pushurl' could be used, 'commiturl'
744 svn.brokenSymlinkWorkaround::
745 This disables potentially expensive checks to workaround
746 broken symlinks checked into SVN by broken clients. Set this
747 option to "false" if you track a SVN repository with many
748 empty blobs that are not symlinks. This option may be changed
749 while 'git svn' is running and take effect on the next
750 revision fetched. If unset, 'git svn' assumes this option to
753 svn.pathnameencoding::
754 This instructs git svn to recode pathnames to a given encoding.
755 It can be used by windows users and by those who work in non-utf8
756 locales to avoid corrupted file names with non-ASCII characters.
757 Valid encodings are the ones supported by Perl's Encode module.
759 svn-remote.<name>.automkdirs::
760 Normally, the "git svn clone" and "git svn rebase" commands
761 attempt to recreate empty directories that are in the
762 Subversion repository. If this option is set to "false", then
763 empty directories will only be created if the "git svn mkdirs"
764 command is run explicitly. If unset, 'git svn' assumes this
767 Since the noMetadata, rewriteRoot, rewriteUUID, useSvnsyncProps and useSvmProps
768 options all affect the metadata generated and used by 'git svn'; they
769 *must* be set in the configuration file before any history is imported
770 and these settings should never be changed once they are set.
772 Additionally, only one of these options can be used per svn-remote
773 section because they affect the 'git-svn-id:' metadata line, except
774 for rewriteRoot and rewriteUUID which can be used together.
780 Tracking and contributing to the trunk of a Subversion-managed project
781 (ignoring tags and branches):
783 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
784 # Clone a repo (like git clone):
785 git svn clone http://svn.example.com/project/trunk
786 # Enter the newly cloned directory:
788 # You should be on master branch, double-check with 'git branch'
790 # Do some work and commit locally to Git:
792 # Something is committed to SVN, rebase your local changes against the
793 # latest changes in SVN:
795 # Now commit your changes (that were committed previously using Git) to SVN,
796 # as well as automatically updating your working HEAD:
798 # Append svn:ignore settings to the default Git exclude file:
799 git svn show-ignore >> .git/info/exclude
800 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
802 Tracking and contributing to an entire Subversion-managed project
803 (complete with a trunk, tags and branches):
805 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
806 # Clone a repo with standard SVN directory layout (like git clone):
807 git svn clone http://svn.example.com/project --stdlayout
808 # Or, if the repo uses a non-standard directory layout:
809 git svn clone http://svn.example.com/project -T tr -b branch -t tag
810 # View all branches and tags you have cloned:
812 # Create a new branch in SVN
814 # Reset your master to trunk (or any other branch, replacing 'trunk'
815 # with the appropriate name):
816 git reset --hard remotes/trunk
817 # You may only dcommit to one branch/tag/trunk at a time. The usage
818 # of dcommit/rebase/show-ignore should be the same as above.
819 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
821 The initial 'git svn clone' can be quite time-consuming
822 (especially for large Subversion repositories). If multiple
823 people (or one person with multiple machines) want to use
824 'git svn' to interact with the same Subversion repository, you can
825 do the initial 'git svn clone' to a repository on a server and
826 have each person clone that repository with 'git clone':
828 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
829 # Do the initial import on a server
830 ssh server "cd /pub && git svn clone http://svn.example.com/project
831 # Clone locally - make sure the refs/remotes/ space matches the server
835 git remote add origin server:/pub/project
836 git config --replace-all remote.origin.fetch '+refs/remotes/*:refs/remotes/*'
838 # Prevent fetch/pull from remote Git server in the future,
839 # we only want to use git svn for future updates
840 git config --remove-section remote.origin
841 # Create a local branch from one of the branches just fetched
842 git checkout -b master FETCH_HEAD
843 # Initialize 'git svn' locally (be sure to use the same URL and -T/-b/-t options as were used on server)
844 git svn init http://svn.example.com/project
845 # Pull the latest changes from Subversion
847 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
849 REBASE VS. PULL/MERGE
850 ---------------------
851 Prefer to use 'git svn rebase' or 'git rebase', rather than
852 'git pull' or 'git merge' to synchronize unintegrated commits with a 'git svn'
853 branch. Doing so will keep the history of unintegrated commits linear with
854 respect to the upstream SVN repository and allow the use of the preferred
855 'git svn dcommit' subcommand to push unintegrated commits back into SVN.
857 Originally, 'git svn' recommended that developers pulled or merged from
858 the 'git svn' branch. This was because the author favored
859 `git svn set-tree B` to commit a single head rather than the
860 `git svn set-tree A..B` notation to commit multiple commits. Use of
861 'git pull' or 'git merge' with `git svn set-tree A..B` will cause non-linear
862 history to be flattened when committing into SVN and this can lead to merge
863 commits unexpectedly reversing previous commits in SVN.
867 While 'git svn' can track
868 copy history (including branches and tags) for repositories adopting a
869 standard layout, it cannot yet represent merge history that happened
870 inside git back upstream to SVN users. Therefore it is advised that
871 users keep history as linear as possible inside Git to ease
872 compatibility with SVN (see the CAVEATS section below).
874 HANDLING OF SVN BRANCHES
875 ------------------------
876 If 'git svn' is configured to fetch branches (and --follow-branches
877 is in effect), it sometimes creates multiple Git branches for one
878 SVN branch, where the additional branches have names of the form
879 'branchname@nnn' (with nnn an SVN revision number). These additional
880 branches are created if 'git svn' cannot find a parent commit for the
881 first commit in an SVN branch, to connect the branch to the history of
884 Normally, the first commit in an SVN branch consists
885 of a copy operation. 'git svn' will read this commit to get the SVN
886 revision the branch was created from. It will then try to find the
887 Git commit that corresponds to this SVN revision, and use that as the
888 parent of the branch. However, it is possible that there is no suitable
889 Git commit to serve as parent. This will happen, among other reasons,
890 if the SVN branch is a copy of a revision that was not fetched by 'git
891 svn' (e.g. because it is an old revision that was skipped with
892 '--revision'), or if in SVN a directory was copied that is not tracked
893 by 'git svn' (such as a branch that is not tracked at all, or a
894 subdirectory of a tracked branch). In these cases, 'git svn' will still
895 create a Git branch, but instead of using an existing Git commit as the
896 parent of the branch, it will read the SVN history of the directory the
897 branch was copied from and create appropriate Git commits. This is
898 indicated by the message "Initializing parent: <branchname>".
900 Additionally, it will create a special branch named
901 '<branchname>@<SVN-Revision>', where <SVN-Revision> is the SVN revision
902 number the branch was copied from. This branch will point to the newly
903 created parent commit of the branch. If in SVN the branch was deleted
904 and later recreated from a different version, there will be multiple
905 such branches with an '@'.
907 Note that this may mean that multiple Git commits are created for a
910 An example: in an SVN repository with a standard
911 trunk/tags/branches layout, a directory trunk/sub is created in r.100.
912 In r.200, trunk/sub is branched by copying it to branches/. 'git svn
913 clone -s' will then create a branch 'sub'. It will also create new Git
914 commits for r.100 through r.199 and use these as the history of branch
915 'sub'. Thus there will be two Git commits for each revision from r.100
916 to r.199 (one containing trunk/, one containing trunk/sub/). Finally,
917 it will create a branch 'sub@200' pointing to the new parent commit of
918 branch 'sub' (i.e. the commit for r.200 and trunk/sub/).
923 For the sake of simplicity and interoperating with Subversion,
924 it is recommended that all 'git svn' users clone, fetch and dcommit
925 directly from the SVN server, and avoid all 'git clone'/'pull'/'merge'/'push'
926 operations between Git repositories and branches. The recommended
927 method of exchanging code between Git branches and users is
928 'git format-patch' and 'git am', or just 'dcommit'ing to the SVN repository.
930 Running 'git merge' or 'git pull' is NOT recommended on a branch you
931 plan to 'dcommit' from because Subversion users cannot see any
932 merges you've made. Furthermore, if you merge or pull from a Git branch
933 that is a mirror of an SVN branch, 'dcommit' may commit to the wrong
936 If you do merge, note the following rule: 'git svn dcommit' will
937 attempt to commit on top of the SVN commit named in
938 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
939 git log --grep=^git-svn-id: --first-parent -1
940 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
941 You 'must' therefore ensure that the most recent commit of the branch
942 you want to dcommit to is the 'first' parent of the merge. Chaos will
943 ensue otherwise, especially if the first parent is an older commit on
946 'git clone' does not clone branches under the refs/remotes/ hierarchy or
947 any 'git svn' metadata, or config. So repositories created and managed with
948 using 'git svn' should use 'rsync' for cloning, if cloning is to be done
951 Since 'dcommit' uses rebase internally, any Git branches you 'git push' to
952 before 'dcommit' on will require forcing an overwrite of the existing ref
953 on the remote repository. This is generally considered bad practice,
954 see the linkgit:git-push[1] documentation for details.
956 Do not use the --amend option of linkgit:git-commit[1] on a change you've
957 already dcommitted. It is considered bad practice to --amend commits
958 you've already pushed to a remote repository for other users, and
959 dcommit with SVN is analogous to that.
961 When cloning an SVN repository, if none of the options for describing
962 the repository layout is used (--trunk, --tags, --branches,
963 --stdlayout), 'git svn clone' will create a Git repository with
964 completely linear history, where branches and tags appear as separate
965 directories in the working copy. While this is the easiest way to get a
966 copy of a complete repository, for projects with many branches it will
967 lead to a working copy many times larger than just the trunk. Thus for
968 projects using the standard directory structure (trunk/branches/tags),
969 it is recommended to clone with option '--stdlayout'. If the project
970 uses a non-standard structure, and/or if branches and tags are not
971 required, it is easiest to only clone one directory (typically trunk),
972 without giving any repository layout options. If the full history with
973 branches and tags is required, the options '--trunk' / '--branches' /
974 '--tags' must be used.
976 When using multiple --branches or --tags, 'git svn' does not automatically
977 handle name collisions (for example, if two branches from different paths have
978 the same name, or if a branch and a tag have the same name). In these cases,
979 use 'init' to set up your Git repository then, before your first 'fetch', edit
980 the .git/config file so that the branches and tags are associated with
981 different name spaces. For example:
983 branches = stable/*:refs/remotes/svn/stable/*
984 branches = debug/*:refs/remotes/svn/debug/*
989 We ignore all SVN properties except svn:executable. Any unhandled
990 properties are logged to $GIT_DIR/svn/<refname>/unhandled.log
992 Renamed and copied directories are not detected by Git and hence not
993 tracked when committing to SVN. I do not plan on adding support for
994 this as it's quite difficult and time-consuming to get working for all
995 the possible corner cases (Git doesn't do it, either). Committing
996 renamed and copied files is fully supported if they're similar enough
997 for Git to detect them.
999 In SVN, it is possible (though discouraged) to commit changes to a tag
1000 (because a tag is just a directory copy, thus technically the same as a
1001 branch). When cloning an SVN repository, 'git svn' cannot know if such a
1002 commit to a tag will happen in the future. Thus it acts conservatively
1003 and imports all SVN tags as branches, prefixing the tag name with 'tags/'.
1008 'git svn' stores [svn-remote] configuration information in the
1009 repository .git/config file. It is similar the core Git
1010 [remote] sections except 'fetch' keys do not accept glob
1011 arguments; but they are instead handled by the 'branches'
1012 and 'tags' keys. Since some SVN repositories are oddly
1013 configured with multiple projects glob expansions such those
1014 listed below are allowed:
1016 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
1017 [svn-remote "project-a"]
1018 url = http://server.org/svn
1019 fetch = trunk/project-a:refs/remotes/project-a/trunk
1020 branches = branches/*/project-a:refs/remotes/project-a/branches/*
1021 tags = tags/*/project-a:refs/remotes/project-a/tags/*
1022 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
1024 Keep in mind that the '\*' (asterisk) wildcard of the local ref
1025 (right of the ':') *must* be the farthest right path component;
1026 however the remote wildcard may be anywhere as long as it's an
1027 independent path component (surrounded by '/' or EOL). This
1028 type of configuration is not automatically created by 'init' and
1029 should be manually entered with a text-editor or using 'git config'.
1031 It is also possible to fetch a subset of branches or tags by using a
1032 comma-separated list of names within braces. For example:
1034 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
1035 [svn-remote "huge-project"]
1036 url = http://server.org/svn
1037 fetch = trunk/src:refs/remotes/trunk
1038 branches = branches/{red,green}/src:refs/remotes/branches/*
1039 tags = tags/{1.0,2.0}/src:refs/remotes/tags/*
1040 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
1042 Multiple fetch, branches, and tags keys are supported:
1044 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
1045 [svn-remote "messy-repo"]
1046 url = http://server.org/svn
1047 fetch = trunk/project-a:refs/remotes/project-a/trunk
1048 fetch = branches/demos/june-project-a-demo:refs/remotes/project-a/demos/june-demo
1049 branches = branches/server/*:refs/remotes/project-a/branches/*
1050 branches = branches/demos/2011/*:refs/remotes/project-a/2011-demos/*
1051 tags = tags/server/*:refs/remotes/project-a/tags/*
1052 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
1054 Creating a branch in such a configuration requires disambiguating which
1055 location to use using the -d or --destination flag:
1057 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
1058 $ git svn branch -d branches/server release-2-3-0
1059 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
1061 Note that git-svn keeps track of the highest revision in which a branch
1062 or tag has appeared. If the subset of branches or tags is changed after
1063 fetching, then .git/svn/.metadata must be manually edited to remove (or
1064 reset) branches-maxRev and/or tags-maxRev as appropriate.
1068 linkgit:git-rebase[1]
1072 Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite