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
89 When tracking multiple directories (using --stdlayout,
90 --branches, or --tags options), git svn will attempt to connect
91 to the root (or highest allowed level) of the Subversion
92 repository. This default allows better tracking of history if
93 entire projects are moved within a repository, but may cause
94 issues on repositories where read access restrictions are in
95 place. Passing '--no-minimize-url' will allow git svn to
96 accept URLs as-is without attempting to connect to a higher
97 level directory. This option is off by default when only
98 one URL/branch is tracked (it would do little good).
101 Fetch unfetched revisions from the Subversion remote we are
102 tracking. The name of the [svn-remote "..."] section in the
103 .git/config file may be specified as an optional command-line
107 Store Git commit times in the local timezone instead of UTC. This
108 makes 'git log' (even without --date=local) show the same times
109 that `svn log` would in the local timezone.
111 This doesn't interfere with interoperating with the Subversion
112 repository you cloned from, but if you wish for your local Git
113 repository to be able to interoperate with someone else's local Git
114 repository, either don't use this option or you should both use it in
115 the same local timezone.
118 Fetch only from the SVN parent of the current HEAD.
120 --ignore-paths=<regex>;;
121 This allows one to specify a Perl regular expression that will
122 cause skipping of all matching paths from checkout from SVN.
123 The '--ignore-paths' option should match for every 'fetch'
124 (including automatic fetches due to 'clone', 'dcommit',
125 'rebase', etc) on a given repository.
128 config key: svn-remote.<name>.ignore-paths
130 If the ignore-paths config key is set and the command line option is
131 also given, both regular expressions will be used.
136 Skip "doc*" directory for every fetch;;
138 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
139 --ignore-paths="^doc"
140 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
142 Skip "branches" and "tags" of first level directories;;
144 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
145 --ignore-paths="^[^/]+/(?:branches|tags)"
146 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
150 Runs 'init' and 'fetch'. It will automatically create a
151 directory based on the basename of the URL passed to it;
152 or if a second argument is passed; it will create a directory
153 and work within that. It accepts all arguments that the
154 'init' and 'fetch' commands accept; with the exception of
155 '--fetch-all' and '--parent'. After a repository is cloned,
156 the 'fetch' command will be able to update revisions without
157 affecting the working tree; and the 'rebase' command will be
158 able to update the working tree with the latest changes.
160 --preserve-empty-dirs;;
161 Create a placeholder file in the local Git repository for each
162 empty directory fetched from Subversion. This includes directories
163 that become empty by removing all entries in the Subversion
164 repository (but not the directory itself). The placeholder files
165 are also tracked and removed when no longer necessary.
167 --placeholder-filename=<filename>;;
168 Set the name of placeholder files created by --preserve-empty-dirs.
169 Default: ".gitignore"
172 This fetches revisions from the SVN parent of the current HEAD
173 and rebases the current (uncommitted to SVN) work against it.
175 This works similarly to `svn update` or 'git pull' except that
176 it preserves linear history with 'git rebase' instead of
177 'git merge' for ease of dcommitting with 'git svn'.
179 This accepts all options that 'git svn fetch' and 'git rebase'
180 accept. However, '--fetch-all' only fetches from the current
181 [svn-remote], and not all [svn-remote] definitions.
183 Like 'git rebase'; this requires that the working tree be clean
184 and have no uncommitted changes.
188 Do not fetch remotely; only run 'git rebase' against the
189 last fetched commit from the upstream SVN.
192 Commit each diff from the current branch directly to the SVN
193 repository, and then rebase or reset (depending on whether or
194 not there is a diff between SVN and head). This will create
195 a revision in SVN for each commit in git.
197 When an optional git branch name (or a git commit object name)
198 is specified as an argument, the subcommand works on the specified
199 branch, not on the current branch.
201 Use of 'dcommit' is preferred to 'set-tree' (below).
204 After committing, do not rebase or reset.
206 Commit to this SVN URL (the full path). This is intended to
207 allow existing 'git svn' repositories created with one transport
208 method (e.g. `svn://` or `http://` for anonymous read) to be
209 reused if a user is later given access to an alternate transport
210 method (e.g. `svn+ssh://` or `https://`) for commit.
213 config key: svn-remote.<name>.commiturl
214 config key: svn.commiturl (overwrites all svn-remote.<name>.commiturl options)
216 Using this option for any other purpose (don't ask) is very strongly
219 --mergeinfo=<mergeinfo>;;
220 Add the given merge information during the dcommit
221 (e.g. `--mergeinfo="/branches/foo:1-10"`). All svn server versions can
222 store this information (as a property), and svn clients starting from
223 version 1.5 can make use of it. To specify merge information from multiple
224 branches, use a single space character between the branches
225 (`--mergeinfo="/branches/foo:1-10 /branches/bar:3,5-6,8"`)
228 config key: svn.pushmergeinfo
230 This option will cause git-svn to attempt to automatically populate the
231 svn:mergeinfo property in the SVN repository when possible. Currently, this can
232 only be done when dcommitting non-fast-forward merges where all parents but the
233 first have already been pushed into SVN.
236 Ask the user to confirm that a patch set should actually be sent to SVN.
237 For each patch, one may answer "yes" (accept this patch), "no" (discard this
238 patch), "all" (accept all patches), or "quit".
240 'git svn dcommit' returns immediately if answer if "no" or "quit", without
241 commiting anything to SVN.
244 Create a branch in the SVN repository.
248 Allows to specify the commit message.
252 Create a tag by using the tags_subdir instead of the branches_subdir
253 specified during git svn init.
257 If more than one --branches (or --tags) option was given to the 'init'
258 or 'clone' command, you must provide the location of the branch (or
259 tag) you wish to create in the SVN repository. The value of this
260 option must match one of the paths specified by a --branches (or
261 --tags) option. You can see these paths with the commands
263 git config --get-all svn-remote.<name>.branches
264 git config --get-all svn-remote.<name>.tags
266 where <name> is the name of the SVN repository as specified by the -R option to
267 'init' (or "svn" by default).
270 Specify the SVN username to perform the commit as. This option overrides
271 the 'username' configuration property.
274 Use the specified URL to connect to the destination Subversion
275 repository. This is useful in cases where the source SVN
276 repository is read-only. This option overrides configuration
277 property 'commiturl'.
279 git config --get-all svn-remote.<name>.commiturl
283 Create a tag in the SVN repository. This is a shorthand for
287 This should make it easy to look up svn log messages when svn
288 users refer to -r/--revision numbers.
290 The following features from `svn log' are supported:
294 --revision=<n>[:<n>];;
295 is supported, non-numeric args are not:
296 HEAD, NEXT, BASE, PREV, etc ...
299 it's not completely compatible with the --verbose
300 output in svn log, but reasonably close.
302 is NOT the same as --max-count, doesn't count
303 merged/excluded commits
312 shows the git commit sha1, as well
314 our version of --pretty=oneline
317 NOTE: SVN itself only stores times in UTC and nothing else. The regular svn
318 client converts the UTC time to the local time (or based on the TZ=
319 environment). This command has the same behaviour.
321 Any other arguments are passed directly to 'git log'
324 Show what revision and author last modified each line of a file. The
325 output of this mode is format-compatible with the output of
326 `svn blame' by default. Like the SVN blame command,
327 local uncommitted changes in the working tree are ignored;
328 the version of the file in the HEAD revision is annotated. Unknown
329 arguments are passed directly to 'git blame'.
332 Produce output in the same format as 'git blame', but with
333 SVN revision numbers instead of git commit hashes. In this mode,
334 changes that haven't been committed to SVN (including local
335 working-copy edits) are shown as revision 0.
338 When given an SVN revision number of the form 'rN', returns the
339 corresponding git commit hash (this can optionally be followed by a
340 tree-ish to specify which branch should be searched). When given a
341 tree-ish, returns the corresponding SVN revision number.
344 You should consider using 'dcommit' instead of this command.
345 Commit specified commit or tree objects to SVN. This relies on
346 your imported fetch data being up-to-date. This makes
347 absolutely no attempts to do patching when committing to SVN, it
348 simply overwrites files with those specified in the tree or
349 commit. All merging is assumed to have taken place
350 independently of 'git svn' functions.
353 Recursively finds the svn:ignore property on directories and
354 creates matching .gitignore files. The resulting files are staged to
355 be committed, but are not committed. Use -r/--revision to refer to a
359 Recursively finds and lists the svn:ignore property on
360 directories. The output is suitable for appending to
361 the $GIT_DIR/info/exclude file.
364 Attempts to recreate empty directories that core git cannot track
365 based on information in $GIT_DIR/svn/<refname>/unhandled.log files.
366 Empty directories are automatically recreated when using
367 "git svn clone" and "git svn rebase", so "mkdirs" is intended
368 for use after commands like "git checkout" or "git reset".
369 (See the svn-remote.<name>.automkdirs config file option for
373 Commits the diff of two tree-ish arguments from the
374 command-line. This command does not rely on being inside an `git svn
375 init`-ed repository. This command takes three arguments, (a) the
376 original tree to diff against, (b) the new tree result, (c) the
377 URL of the target Subversion repository. The final argument
378 (URL) may be omitted if you are working from a 'git svn'-aware
379 repository (that has been `init`-ed with 'git svn').
380 The -r<revision> option is required for this.
383 Shows information about a file or directory similar to what
384 `svn info' provides. Does not currently support a -r/--revision
385 argument. Use the --url option to output only the value of the
389 Lists the properties stored in the Subversion repository about a
390 given file or directory. Use -r/--revision to refer to a specific
394 Gets the Subversion property given as the first argument, for a
395 file. A specific revision can be specified with -r/--revision.
398 Shows the Subversion externals. Use -r/--revision to specify a
402 Compress $GIT_DIR/svn/<refname>/unhandled.log files in .git/svn
403 and remove $GIT_DIR/svn/<refname>index files in .git/svn.
406 Undoes the effects of 'fetch' back to the specified revision.
407 This allows you to re-'fetch' an SVN revision. Normally the
408 contents of an SVN revision should never change and 'reset'
409 should not be necessary. However, if SVN permissions change,
410 or if you alter your --ignore-paths option, a 'fetch' may fail
411 with "not found in commit" (file not previously visible) or
412 "checksum mismatch" (missed a modification). If the problem
413 file cannot be ignored forever (with --ignore-paths) the only
414 way to repair the repo is to use 'reset'.
416 Only the rev_map and refs/remotes/git-svn are changed. Follow 'reset'
417 with a 'fetch' and then 'git reset' or 'git rebase' to move local
418 branches onto the new tree.
422 Specify the most recent revision to keep. All later revisions
426 Discard the specified revision as well, keeping the nearest
429 Assume you have local changes in "master", but you need to refetch "r2".
432 r1---r2---r3 remotes/git-svn
437 Fix the ignore-paths or SVN permissions problem that caused "r2" to
438 be incomplete in the first place. Then:
445 r1---r2'--r3' remotes/git-svn
447 r2---r3---A---B master
450 Then fixup "master" with 'git rebase'.
451 Do NOT use 'git merge' or your history will not be compatible with a
455 git rebase --onto remotes/git-svn A^ master
458 r1---r2'--r3' remotes/git-svn
466 --shared[=(false|true|umask|group|all|world|everybody)]::
467 --template=<template_directory>::
468 Only used with the 'init' command.
469 These are passed directly to 'git init'.
473 Used with the 'fetch' command.
475 This allows revision ranges for partial/cauterized history
476 to be supported. $NUMBER, $NUMBER1:$NUMBER2 (numeric ranges),
477 $NUMBER:HEAD, and BASE:$NUMBER are all supported.
479 This can allow you to make partial mirrors when running fetch;
480 but is generally not recommended because history will be skipped
485 Only used with the 'set-tree' command.
487 Read a list of commits from stdin and commit them in reverse
488 order. Only the leading sha1 is read from each line, so
489 'git rev-list --pretty=oneline' output can be used.
492 Only used with the 'dcommit', 'set-tree' and 'commit-diff' commands.
494 Remove directories from the SVN tree if there are no files left
495 behind. SVN can version empty directories, and they are not
496 removed by default if there are no files left in them. git
497 cannot version empty directories. Enabling this flag will make
498 the commit to SVN act like git.
501 config key: svn.rmdir
505 Only used with the 'dcommit', 'set-tree' and 'commit-diff' commands.
507 Edit the commit message before committing to SVN. This is off by
508 default for objects that are commits, and forced on when committing
515 --find-copies-harder::
516 Only used with the 'dcommit', 'set-tree' and 'commit-diff' commands.
518 They are both passed directly to 'git diff-tree'; see
519 linkgit:git-diff-tree[1] for more information.
523 config key: svn.findcopiesharder
526 --authors-file=<filename>::
527 Syntax is compatible with the file used by 'git cvsimport':
529 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
530 loginname = Joe User <user@example.com>
531 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
533 If this option is specified and 'git svn' encounters an SVN
534 committer name that does not exist in the authors-file, 'git svn'
535 will abort operation. The user will then have to add the
536 appropriate entry. Re-running the previous 'git svn' command
537 after the authors-file is modified should continue operation.
540 config key: svn.authorsfile
542 --authors-prog=<filename>::
543 If this option is specified, for each SVN committer name that
544 does not exist in the authors file, the given file is executed
545 with the committer name as the first argument. The program is
546 expected to return a single line of the form "Name <email>",
547 which will be treated as if included in the authors file.
551 Make 'git svn' less verbose. Specify a second time to make it
555 --repack-flags=<flags>::
556 These should help keep disk usage sane for large fetches with
559 --repack takes an optional argument for the number of revisions
560 to fetch before repacking. This defaults to repacking every
561 1000 commits fetched if no argument is specified.
563 --repack-flags are passed directly to 'git repack'.
566 config key: svn.repack
567 config key: svn.repackflags
572 --strategy=<strategy>::
575 These are only used with the 'dcommit' and 'rebase' commands.
577 Passed directly to 'git rebase' when using 'dcommit' if a
578 'git reset' cannot be used (see 'dcommit').
582 This can be used with the 'dcommit', 'rebase', 'branch' and
585 For 'dcommit', print out the series of git arguments that would show
586 which diffs would be committed to SVN.
588 For 'rebase', display the local branch associated with the upstream svn
589 repository associated with the current branch and the URL of svn
590 repository that will be fetched from.
592 For 'branch' and 'tag', display the urls that will be used for copying when
593 creating the branch or tag.
596 When retrieving svn commits into git (as part of 'fetch', 'rebase', or
597 'dcommit' operations), look for the first `From:` or `Signed-off-by:` line
598 in the log message and use that as the author string.
600 When committing to svn from git (as part of 'commit-diff', 'set-tree' or 'dcommit'
601 operations), if the existing log message doesn't already have a
602 `From:` or `Signed-off-by:` line, append a `From:` line based on the
603 git commit's author string. If you use this, then `--use-log-author`
604 will retrieve a valid author string for all commits.
612 This sets GIT_SVN_ID (instead of using the environment). This
613 allows the user to override the default refname to fetch from
614 when tracking a single URL. The 'log' and 'dcommit' commands
615 no longer require this switch as an argument.
618 --svn-remote <remote name>::
619 Specify the [svn-remote "<remote name>"] section to use,
620 this allows SVN multiple repositories to be tracked.
624 This option is only relevant if we are tracking branches (using
625 one of the repository layout options --trunk, --tags,
626 --branches, --stdlayout). For each tracked branch, try to find
627 out where its revision was copied from, and set
628 a suitable parent in the first git commit for the branch.
629 This is especially helpful when we're tracking a directory
630 that has been moved around within the repository. If this
631 feature is disabled, the branches created by 'git svn' will all
632 be linear and not share any history, meaning that there will be
633 no information on where branches were branched off or merged.
634 However, following long/convoluted histories can take a long
635 time, so disabling this feature may speed up the cloning
636 process. This feature is enabled by default, use
637 --no-follow-parent to disable it.
640 config key: svn.followparent
642 CONFIG FILE-ONLY OPTIONS
643 ------------------------
646 svn-remote.<name>.noMetadata::
647 This gets rid of the 'git-svn-id:' lines at the end of every commit.
649 This option can only be used for one-shot imports as 'git svn'
650 will not be able to fetch again without metadata. Additionally,
651 if you lose your .git/svn/**/.rev_map.* files, 'git svn' will not
652 be able to rebuild them.
654 The 'git svn log' command will not work on repositories using
655 this, either. Using this conflicts with the 'useSvmProps'
656 option for (hopefully) obvious reasons.
658 This option is NOT recommended as it makes it difficult to track down
659 old references to SVN revision numbers in existing documentation, bug
660 reports and archives. If you plan to eventually migrate from SVN to git
661 and are certain about dropping SVN history, consider
662 linkgit:git-filter-branch[1] instead. filter-branch also allows
663 reformatting of metadata for ease-of-reading and rewriting authorship
664 info for non-"svn.authorsFile" users.
667 svn-remote.<name>.useSvmProps::
668 This allows 'git svn' to re-map repository URLs and UUIDs from
669 mirrors created using SVN::Mirror (or svk) for metadata.
671 If an SVN revision has a property, "svm:headrev", it is likely
672 that the revision was created by SVN::Mirror (also used by SVK).
673 The property contains a repository UUID and a revision. We want
674 to make it look like we are mirroring the original URL, so
675 introduce a helper function that returns the original identity
676 URL and UUID, and use it when generating metadata in commit
679 svn.useSvnsyncProps::
680 svn-remote.<name>.useSvnsyncprops::
681 Similar to the useSvmProps option; this is for users
682 of the svnsync(1) command distributed with SVN 1.4.x and
685 svn-remote.<name>.rewriteRoot::
686 This allows users to create repositories from alternate
687 URLs. For example, an administrator could run 'git svn' on the
688 server locally (accessing via file://) but wish to distribute
689 the repository with a public http:// or svn:// URL in the
690 metadata so users of it will see the public URL.
692 svn-remote.<name>.rewriteUUID::
693 Similar to the useSvmProps option; this is for users who need
694 to remap the UUID manually. This may be useful in situations
695 where the original UUID is not available via either useSvmProps
698 svn-remote.<name>.pushurl::
700 Similar to git's 'remote.<name>.pushurl', this key is designed
701 to be used in cases where 'url' points to an SVN repository
702 via a read-only transport, to provide an alternate read/write
703 transport. It is assumed that both keys point to the same
704 repository. Unlike 'commiturl', 'pushurl' is a base path. If
705 either 'commiturl' or 'pushurl' could be used, 'commiturl'
708 svn.brokenSymlinkWorkaround::
709 This disables potentially expensive checks to workaround
710 broken symlinks checked into SVN by broken clients. Set this
711 option to "false" if you track a SVN repository with many
712 empty blobs that are not symlinks. This option may be changed
713 while 'git svn' is running and take effect on the next
714 revision fetched. If unset, 'git svn' assumes this option to
717 svn.pathnameencoding::
718 This instructs git svn to recode pathnames to a given encoding.
719 It can be used by windows users and by those who work in non-utf8
720 locales to avoid corrupted file names with non-ASCII characters.
721 Valid encodings are the ones supported by Perl's Encode module.
723 svn-remote.<name>.automkdirs::
724 Normally, the "git svn clone" and "git svn rebase" commands
725 attempt to recreate empty directories that are in the
726 Subversion repository. If this option is set to "false", then
727 empty directories will only be created if the "git svn mkdirs"
728 command is run explicitly. If unset, 'git svn' assumes this
731 Since the noMetadata, rewriteRoot, rewriteUUID, useSvnsyncProps and useSvmProps
732 options all affect the metadata generated and used by 'git svn'; they
733 *must* be set in the configuration file before any history is imported
734 and these settings should never be changed once they are set.
736 Additionally, only one of these options can be used per svn-remote
737 section because they affect the 'git-svn-id:' metadata line, except
738 for rewriteRoot and rewriteUUID which can be used together.
744 Tracking and contributing to the trunk of a Subversion-managed project
745 (ignoring tags and branches):
747 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
748 # Clone a repo (like git clone):
749 git svn clone http://svn.example.com/project/trunk
750 # Enter the newly cloned directory:
752 # You should be on master branch, double-check with 'git branch'
754 # Do some work and commit locally to git:
756 # Something is committed to SVN, rebase your local changes against the
757 # latest changes in SVN:
759 # Now commit your changes (that were committed previously using git) to SVN,
760 # as well as automatically updating your working HEAD:
762 # Append svn:ignore settings to the default git exclude file:
763 git svn show-ignore >> .git/info/exclude
764 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
766 Tracking and contributing to an entire Subversion-managed project
767 (complete with a trunk, tags and branches):
769 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
770 # Clone a repo with standard SVN directory layout (like git clone):
771 git svn clone http://svn.example.com/project --stdlayout
772 # Or, if the repo uses a non-standard directory layout:
773 git svn clone http://svn.example.com/project -T tr -b branch -t tag
774 # View all branches and tags you have cloned:
776 # Create a new branch in SVN
778 # Reset your master to trunk (or any other branch, replacing 'trunk'
779 # with the appropriate name):
780 git reset --hard remotes/trunk
781 # You may only dcommit to one branch/tag/trunk at a time. The usage
782 # of dcommit/rebase/show-ignore should be the same as above.
783 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
785 The initial 'git svn clone' can be quite time-consuming
786 (especially for large Subversion repositories). If multiple
787 people (or one person with multiple machines) want to use
788 'git svn' to interact with the same Subversion repository, you can
789 do the initial 'git svn clone' to a repository on a server and
790 have each person clone that repository with 'git clone':
792 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
793 # Do the initial import on a server
794 ssh server "cd /pub && git svn clone http://svn.example.com/project
795 # Clone locally - make sure the refs/remotes/ space matches the server
799 git remote add origin server:/pub/project
800 git config --replace-all remote.origin.fetch '+refs/remotes/*:refs/remotes/*'
802 # Prevent fetch/pull from remote git server in the future,
803 # we only want to use git svn for future updates
804 git config --remove-section remote.origin
805 # Create a local branch from one of the branches just fetched
806 git checkout -b master FETCH_HEAD
807 # Initialize 'git svn' locally (be sure to use the same URL and -T/-b/-t options as were used on server)
808 git svn init http://svn.example.com/project
809 # Pull the latest changes from Subversion
811 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
813 REBASE VS. PULL/MERGE
814 ---------------------
815 Prefer to use 'git svn rebase' or 'git rebase', rather than
816 'git pull' or 'git merge' to synchronize unintegrated commits with a 'git svn'
817 branch. Doing so will keep the history of unintegrated commits linear with
818 respect to the upstream SVN repository and allow the use of the preferred
819 'git svn dcommit' subcommand to push unintegrated commits back into SVN.
821 Originally, 'git svn' recommended that developers pulled or merged from
822 the 'git svn' branch. This was because the author favored
823 `git svn set-tree B` to commit a single head rather than the
824 `git svn set-tree A..B` notation to commit multiple commits. Use of
825 'git pull' or 'git merge' with `git svn set-tree A..B` will cause non-linear
826 history to be flattened when committing into SVN and this can lead to merge
827 commits unexpectedly reversing previous commits in SVN.
831 While 'git svn' can track
832 copy history (including branches and tags) for repositories adopting a
833 standard layout, it cannot yet represent merge history that happened
834 inside git back upstream to SVN users. Therefore it is advised that
835 users keep history as linear as possible inside git to ease
836 compatibility with SVN (see the CAVEATS section below).
838 HANDLING OF SVN BRANCHES
839 ------------------------
840 If 'git svn' is configured to fetch branches (and --follow-branches
841 is in effect), it sometimes creates multiple git branches for one
842 SVN branch, where the addtional branches have names of the form
843 'branchname@nnn' (with nnn an SVN revision number). These additional
844 branches are created if 'git svn' cannot find a parent commit for the
845 first commit in an SVN branch, to connect the branch to the history of
848 Normally, the first commit in an SVN branch consists
849 of a copy operation. 'git svn' will read this commit to get the SVN
850 revision the branch was created from. It will then try to find the
851 git commit that corresponds to this SVN revision, and use that as the
852 parent of the branch. However, it is possible that there is no suitable
853 git commit to serve as parent. This will happen, among other reasons,
854 if the SVN branch is a copy of a revision that was not fetched by 'git
855 svn' (e.g. because it is an old revision that was skipped with
856 '--revision'), or if in SVN a directory was copied that is not tracked
857 by 'git svn' (such as a branch that is not tracked at all, or a
858 subdirectory of a tracked branch). In these cases, 'git svn' will still
859 create a git branch, but instead of using an existing git commit as the
860 parent of the branch, it will read the SVN history of the directory the
861 branch was copied from and create appropriate git commits. This is
862 indicated by the message "Initializing parent: <branchname>".
864 Additionally, it will create a special branch named
865 '<branchname>@<SVN-Revision>', where <SVN-Revision> is the SVN revision
866 number the branch was copied from. This branch will point to the newly
867 created parent commit of the branch. If in SVN the branch was deleted
868 and later recreated from a different version, there will be multiple
869 such branches with an '@'.
871 Note that this may mean that multiple git commits are created for a
874 An example: in an SVN repository with a standard
875 trunk/tags/branches layout, a directory trunk/sub is created in r.100.
876 In r.200, trunk/sub is branched by copying it to branches/. 'git svn
877 clone -s' will then create a branch 'sub'. It will also create new git
878 commits for r.100 through r.199 and use these as the history of branch
879 'sub'. Thus there will be two git commits for each revision from r.100
880 to r.199 (one containing trunk/, one containing trunk/sub/). Finally,
881 it will create a branch 'sub@200' pointing to the new parent commit of
882 branch 'sub' (i.e. the commit for r.200 and trunk/sub/).
887 For the sake of simplicity and interoperating with Subversion,
888 it is recommended that all 'git svn' users clone, fetch and dcommit
889 directly from the SVN server, and avoid all 'git clone'/'pull'/'merge'/'push'
890 operations between git repositories and branches. The recommended
891 method of exchanging code between git branches and users is
892 'git format-patch' and 'git am', or just 'dcommit'ing to the SVN repository.
894 Running 'git merge' or 'git pull' is NOT recommended on a branch you
895 plan to 'dcommit' from because Subversion users cannot see any
896 merges you've made. Furthermore, if you merge or pull from a git branch
897 that is a mirror of an SVN branch, 'dcommit' may commit to the wrong
900 If you do merge, note the following rule: 'git svn dcommit' will
901 attempt to commit on top of the SVN commit named in
902 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
903 git log --grep=^git-svn-id: --first-parent -1
904 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
905 You 'must' therefore ensure that the most recent commit of the branch
906 you want to dcommit to is the 'first' parent of the merge. Chaos will
907 ensue otherwise, especially if the first parent is an older commit on
910 'git clone' does not clone branches under the refs/remotes/ hierarchy or
911 any 'git svn' metadata, or config. So repositories created and managed with
912 using 'git svn' should use 'rsync' for cloning, if cloning is to be done
915 Since 'dcommit' uses rebase internally, any git branches you 'git push' to
916 before 'dcommit' on will require forcing an overwrite of the existing ref
917 on the remote repository. This is generally considered bad practice,
918 see the linkgit:git-push[1] documentation for details.
920 Do not use the --amend option of linkgit:git-commit[1] on a change you've
921 already dcommitted. It is considered bad practice to --amend commits
922 you've already pushed to a remote repository for other users, and
923 dcommit with SVN is analogous to that.
925 When cloning an SVN repository, if none of the options for describing
926 the repository layout is used (--trunk, --tags, --branches,
927 --stdlayout), 'git svn clone' will create a git repository with
928 completely linear history, where branches and tags appear as separate
929 directories in the working copy. While this is the easiest way to get a
930 copy of a complete repository, for projects with many branches it will
931 lead to a working copy many times larger than just the trunk. Thus for
932 projects using the standard directory structure (trunk/branches/tags),
933 it is recommended to clone with option '--stdlayout'. If the project
934 uses a non-standard structure, and/or if branches and tags are not
935 required, it is easiest to only clone one directory (typically trunk),
936 without giving any repository layout options. If the full history with
937 branches and tags is required, the options '--trunk' / '--branches' /
938 '--tags' must be used.
940 When using multiple --branches or --tags, 'git svn' does not automatically
941 handle name collisions (for example, if two branches from different paths have
942 the same name, or if a branch and a tag have the same name). In these cases,
943 use 'init' to set up your git repository then, before your first 'fetch', edit
944 the .git/config file so that the branches and tags are associated with
945 different name spaces. For example:
947 branches = stable/*:refs/remotes/svn/stable/*
948 branches = debug/*:refs/remotes/svn/debug/*
953 We ignore all SVN properties except svn:executable. Any unhandled
954 properties are logged to $GIT_DIR/svn/<refname>/unhandled.log
956 Renamed and copied directories are not detected by git and hence not
957 tracked when committing to SVN. I do not plan on adding support for
958 this as it's quite difficult and time-consuming to get working for all
959 the possible corner cases (git doesn't do it, either). Committing
960 renamed and copied files is fully supported if they're similar enough
961 for git to detect them.
963 In SVN, it is possible (though discouraged) to commit changes to a tag
964 (because a tag is just a directory copy, thus technically the same as a
965 branch). When cloning an SVN repository, 'git svn' cannot know if such a
966 commit to a tag will happen in the future. Thus it acts conservatively
967 and imports all SVN tags as branches, prefixing the tag name with 'tags/'.
972 'git svn' stores [svn-remote] configuration information in the
973 repository .git/config file. It is similar the core git
974 [remote] sections except 'fetch' keys do not accept glob
975 arguments; but they are instead handled by the 'branches'
976 and 'tags' keys. Since some SVN repositories are oddly
977 configured with multiple projects glob expansions such those
978 listed below are allowed:
980 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
981 [svn-remote "project-a"]
982 url = http://server.org/svn
983 fetch = trunk/project-a:refs/remotes/project-a/trunk
984 branches = branches/*/project-a:refs/remotes/project-a/branches/*
985 tags = tags/*/project-a:refs/remotes/project-a/tags/*
986 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
988 Keep in mind that the '\*' (asterisk) wildcard of the local ref
989 (right of the ':') *must* be the farthest right path component;
990 however the remote wildcard may be anywhere as long as it's an
991 independent path component (surrounded by '/' or EOL). This
992 type of configuration is not automatically created by 'init' and
993 should be manually entered with a text-editor or using 'git config'.
995 It is also possible to fetch a subset of branches or tags by using a
996 comma-separated list of names within braces. For example:
998 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
999 [svn-remote "huge-project"]
1000 url = http://server.org/svn
1001 fetch = trunk/src:refs/remotes/trunk
1002 branches = branches/{red,green}/src:refs/remotes/branches/*
1003 tags = tags/{1.0,2.0}/src:refs/remotes/tags/*
1004 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
1006 Note that git-svn keeps track of the highest revision in which a branch
1007 or tag has appeared. If the subset of branches or tags is changed after
1008 fetching, then .git/svn/.metadata must be manually edited to remove (or
1009 reset) branches-maxRev and/or tags-maxRev as appropriate.
1013 linkgit:git-rebase[1]
1017 Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite